The Eternal Reciprocity of Tears
by coolbyrne
Summary: While three families fear the worst when their sons go missing, Carol and Tony face their own private fears.
1. Default Chapter

**RATING:** PG (disturbing imagery)

**DISCLAIMER:** Though some characters here were created by me, for all intents and purposes, they all belong to Val McDermid, who created Tony Hill, Carol Jordan and the rest of the Bradfield gang in the first place. 

**SUMMARY:** While three families fear the worst when their sons go missing, Carol and Tony face their own private fears.

**NOTES:** Check out if you're interested in finding out more about these characters. I have taken liberties with the history of Maggie Thomas, which has not been revealed in the series. My thanks to Val McDermid for the creation of these characters, as well as to Robson Green and Hermione Norris for their fabulous portrayal of them. And to papiliondae, for the title and for making sure I get the British stuff right… and whatnot. (The title comes from the Wilfred Owen poem, "Insensibility".)

--

Tony looked up at the clock. "With fifteen minutes left, let's do a short exercise for Friday's lecture- phobias. We'll start off easy," he addressed the class. "Claustrophobia?"

"Fear of enclosed spaces," a student called out.

"Correct. Agoraphobia?"

"Fear of open spaces."

He nodded. "Spermophobia?" He held up a hand to stop any response and sighed. "And please, before you say anything, it's not what you think."

The class laughed, but couldn't come up with an answer.

"Fear of germs," Tony informed them. "Let's try something a bit more unusual. Triskaidekaphobia?"

A young student in the back yelled out, "Fear of long words I'll never remember by Friday!"

Again, the class laughed and Tony couldn't help but smile, too. "Sorry, Gregory. Fear of the number thirteen."

Several students groaned. "Who honestly has that fear?" one asked in disbelief.

"I've got an even better one," Tony said. "Arachibutyrophobia?"

One boy ventured a guess. "Fear of buttery spiders?"

Tony sighed. "Brush up on your languages, Paul. Arachide, not Arachnid. Ironically enough, you got the buttery part almost right. Arachibutyrophobia- fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth."

Now the entire class groaned.

"You made that up," Paul accused.

"You give me far too much credit." Tony leaned back against the whiteboard. "The point is, a phobia can range from what we would consider 'normal' or 'understandable' to 'absurd'. But make no mistake, to those who suffer from it, it is anything but absurd." He turned and began writing. "There are three groups associated with phobias- Agoraphobia, Social Phobia and Simple Phobia." He underlined all three titles and turned to face the class again. "Agoraphobia is, as we mentioned, fear of open spaces, but in this definition, it is often used to refer to a fear of crowded spaces. It can be the most debilitating of phobias, as often, the person will become housebound and avoid all personal interaction. Social phobia is slightly different. It deals with the anxiety one feels when faced with having to interact within that crowded place or social situation. A fear of public speaking, for example, falls under social phobia. And the deceptively titled simple phobia is a fear towards a very specific thing or situation. A fear of mice or heights, for instance."

A girl raised her hand. "But in all honesty, Professor Hill, how can someone develop a fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of their mouth?"

"The actual cause of phobias isn't yet fully understood," he admitted. "However, most psychologists suggest that they develop out of an unpleasant childhood experience with whatever it is they fear. So, perhaps as a four-year old child, tasting peanut butter for the first time and unfamiliar with its texture, he took a spoonful and panicked when he discovered he couldn't swallow it immediately."

"Okay," the girl nodded, "that makes sense, if you're four. But as an adult, wouldn't he grow up to realize how, well, silly that fear is?"

"But what makes a fear of peanut butter silly and a fear of, say, spiders acceptable?" He saw several students shudder with revulsion and he pointed. "See? I say 'a fear of spiders' and you have get empathic shivers. I say 'peanut butter' and you laugh. The important thing to remember is, their basis is in the psyche. And it's through psychology that we can treat them."

Tony looked up at the clock. "Read pages 263 to 315 by Friday, and write me a 2000-word essay on your biggest fear."

"Does failing this course count?"

"If you can find out the scientific term for it, Simon, I'll gladly accept your paper submission."

As the students began collecting their belongings and filing out of the room, the girl who spoke earlier approached Tony. "So, what's your fear?"

Without hesitation, he answered, "Coulrophobia." The students waited in anticipation for an explanation. Making a face of mock unease, he clarified, "Clowns."

Once the amazement wore off his audience, one student muttered, "I'd like to hear the traumatic childhood experience behind that one."

--

The police room was quiet and somber, as if it were empathizing with its lone occupant, DCI Carol Jordan. If you had asked her, however, she would have told you she wasn't alone- the presence of the pictures of three young boys pinned to the evidence board filled the room. She was sitting in a creaky old chair, her arms folded across her chest, and her long legs crossed. Her thoughts had first been about the case, about the boys, but the frustrating lack of evidence on the board directed her thoughts elsewhere.

She thought back to her childhood, when her dream had been to grow up and become a cop just like her father; her biggest hero. Back then she hadn't realized how quickly he'd aged; how the job slowly chipped away at his soul. She realized it now, because she felt it herself. Her youthful enthusiasm to right wrongs had been slowly eroded by the knowledge that, for all her efforts to do right, wrong first had to be committed. And that's where she found herself now, where all cops ended up – two steps behind right.

Some days were better than others, of course. Some days, that knowledge only fuelled her more, spurred her on to fight harder. Other days, the helplessness overwhelmed her and it took everything in her not to close her eyes, close the door, and close this chapter in her life. This was one of those days. As she looked up at the photos, she wondered why she bothered.

"It won't bring them back," she whispered.

--

Standing in the doorway, Tony was taking it all in. He allowed himself to appreciate how beautiful she was, evading his desire and the confessional nature of his thoughts by methodically cataloguing her features. But as it had been from the first time they'd met, it was her mind that drew him to her time and time again. Intelligent, fiercely determined and… strong. That was the word he would use to describe her. Strong. So hearing her whispered comment startled him. He had rarely thought of her in any other terms: never thought of her as vulnerable, defeated, overwhelmed. That wasn't the Carol he knew. A wry smile twisted his mouth as he admitted to himself that he'd never really acknowledged Carol's vulnerabilities; in all the time they'd known each other he'd grown accustomed to her being his anchor. He had never considered that she might need an anchor of her own.

"But it's the right thing to do," he answered her.

She jumped, the chair in which she sat creaking noisily with the sudden movement.

"Jesus!"

He flashed her a lopsided grin. "No, unfortunately." He walked into the small room coming to stand beside her chair. "I got your message."

"Thanks for coming," she said sincerely.

Tony reached out to put his hand on her shoulder but, unsure of his emotional footing, decided to rest it on the back of her chair. "All you have to do is call, Carol."

Their eyes locked momentarily with Carol being the first to look away. Glancing back at the board, she diffused the tension by saying, "Not sure there's much here to call you about, in all honesty."

He leaned over her shoulder and looked up at the board from her point of view. His eyes soaked it all in and when he was satisfied he had collected it all, he stood up and walked over, as if getting it from a different perspective would give him more information. Though all the details the police had were written or pinned on the board, Tony turned to Carol. He had seen it all, now he wanted to hear it.

They had worked together for so long that as soon as he turned his gaze to her, she began speaking.

"Thomas Young, Kieran Fisher, David Cromwell. Ages eight, seven and seven, respectively. They've all gone missing within the last four months. David Cromwell was the last; he went missing three weeks ago. Parents just reported it this morning."

"Why did it take the parents so long to report him missing?"

"David Cromwell, son of Peter Cromwell, a.k.a. "Pistol" Pete Cromwell."

Tony's eyebrows went up. "The drug lord?"

"Alleged drug lord," Carol corrected, though without much defense.

"So they thought it was a revenge scenario."

Carol nodded. "Yep. They figured they'd keep it "in-house" and deal with it themselves. That, and it kept the police out of any alleged illegal activities. When there was no ransom demand and nothing turned up, they called it in."

He tapped the photo. "So besides the similar ages, and the dark hair and eyes, what's the connection?"

"We're working on it. We're not even sure there is a connection. There are a lot of dark-haired boys that go missing every year."

Reminded again of the unhappy nature of their work, Tony only nodded his understanding. "Bodies?"

"Nope," she answered. "Which only makes it harder to find a connection."

"Well, the good news is, that might mean they're still alive."

"Yeah," she agreed, with little conviction.

"You all right, Carol?"

She unfolded her arms and clasped her hands together on her lap. Avoiding his gaze, she closed her eyes tiredly. "I know all life should be held in the same regard, but I have to admit, this…"

He waited for her to continue, and when she didn't, he picked up her thought. "Kids."

She only nodded.

"It's natural, Carol," he told her. "For most people there is nothing more horrible than a crime inflicted on a child. And, as a woman, it must be doubly hard for you. It's only natural that you would feel a stronger connection to this case than to others."

The chair creaked again as she shifted her position and looked at him. "Do you hear that?" she asked.

Tony tilted his head, looking off to one side as his ears strained to identify the noise Carol referred to.

"That's my biological clock pleasantly reminding me that time is ticking away." She thought that would get a laugh out of him, but instead, she was met with a look of amazement. "Don't worry, that was meant as a remark, not an invitation," she said dryly.

"Oh," he replied, feigning disappointment, and she laughed.

She stood up, feeling a bit better, and gestured towards the photos. "What are we looking for here?"

His brows furrowed in an expression of thought that Carol had come to recognize long ago. "There are several types that fall in this category," he began. "If they're not connected, then it could be difficult to track them down. Three separate cases of individuals who have escalated their pedophile traits; three who have gone past the photos and the voyeurism directly to actual child abduction. Chances are, it's not a friend of the family or a family member. It would be too difficult to keep a child hidden."

"Assuming they're still alive."

He frowned, not at the interruption, but at the implication of her comment. Rather than address it, he carried on. "So we'd be looking for men living in the neighbourhood, seen around parks and schools. And if it's one person, if these three children are connected, we'd be looking in the same areas. Most pedophiles plan things out. Gaining the child's trust, grooming the child, is most important, and that takes a bit of time, particularly in this day and age, where children are more aware of strangers than perhaps years ago."

"So he'd have to take the time to find out which boy he'd think would be most susceptible to persuasion."

"Correct."

"And we're strictly talking male here?"

He shook his head. "Oh, no. Could be a female, though she'd fall into a different category. She would abduct the children not with a sexual motive, but with an emotional one. Perhaps she can't have children or she's lost a child. Maybe turned down for adoption." He saw the stress lines between Carol's eyes appear again. Trying a lighter approach, he added, "Or maybe she's a police woman who hears the faint ticking of her biological clock."

She turned sharply towards him, ready to reprimand him for the inappropriateness of his comment. But, when she saw the sympathetic expression on his face, she appreciated his attempt at lightening the mood. "Not funny," she chastised, though followed it with a grateful smile.

"So how are you approaching this," he asked. "Separate cases or one?"

"Right now we're going over all the evidence of the first two cases and revisiting the witnesses and the information. Seeing if there's any commonalities with schools or friends and the like. Pete Cromwell is coming down later today to give us everything he has."

"Do you think he will?"

"He hasn't got much choice if he wants us to find his son. Besides, I think it was his wife, Diane, who pushed him into cooperating. I think if it comes down to finding her son at the expense of involving the police, she'll do it."

"Mother first, alleged law-breaking accomplice wife second," Tony said. "There's that damn nature coming into play once again." He looked at the board then back to Carol. "Anything else I can do for you?"

She smiled. "You could have some wine chilled later this evening," she suggested.

"Right," he replied without hesitation. "Call before you come over."

"I will," she promised.

He walked to the door.

"Tony?" He turned. "Thanks," she said simply.

--


	2. chapter 2

She was still staring at the board long after Tony had left when Kevin popped his head around the corner.

"Guv, Pete Cromwell and his solicitor are here."

She turned. "Thanks, Kev," she said. "Give me a minute, yeah?"

When he left, she looked at each photograph one more time. All three boys smiled back at her, their bright expressions captured on film, their joyful eyes spoke of mischief and wonder, of irrepressible curiosity. And life. Carol wondered what their eyes were saying now.

Smoothing down her jacket, she took a deep breath and summoned up some strength. She heard Tony, just as sure as if he were in the room. "But it's the right thing to do." She nodded at the unseen presence and felt a renewed sense of conviction. "Right," she said, and left the room.

--

When she entered the small interrogation room, Carol was thankful she wasn't claustrophobic. She looked over at Don, standing quietly in the corner, and speculated for a moment that, if he reached out, his arms might span the room. Kevin stood in the adjacent corner, though still within arm's reach of Don. A small rectangular table, butted against the opposite wall, dominated the rest of the space. Three of the five chairs were occupied. The two men were equally imposing; well dressed and immaculately groomed. However, even if Carol hadn't known Peter Cromwell on sight she would have been able to identify him by the almost insolent air of confidence he exuded. To Cromwell's left sat a woman whom Carol recognized as his wife, Diane. She had jet-black hair and sharp dark eyes to match. This was no demur mob wife.

Carol dropped a file on the table and sat down. "My apologies about the room," she said as she looked around the enclosed space. "We would have done this in the office, but due to your… celebrity, we thought it best to try and keep this as private as possible."

The solicitor noted the absence of a recorder. "You're not recording the proceedings?"

She shook her head. "I thought perhaps it might encourage your client to be as forthcoming as possible with his information." Looking at Cromwell, she went on, "Listen, I'm not here to get into your alleged criminal activities." She stressed the word 'alleged', letting Cromwell know in no uncertain terms what her opinion was. "I'm here to find a little boy who must be frightened out of his skin."

The tough exterior of one of the most feared men in England softened. "Give her the file, Nathan."

The solicitor grudgingly reached into his briefcase. "Once again, Pete, I strongly advise-"

Cromwell didn't say a word, but his eyes spoke volumes, and the file was immediately pushed across to Carol.

"This all of it?" she asked.

"It had better be," Diane answered flatly, not looking at her husband.

"It's everything," he assured her. "Lists of all associates who might have had a reason to do something so stupid." He flashed a set of perfect teeth. "Feel free to do whatever you like with that list."

Carol couldn't help but return a smile of her own. 'Opportunistic bastard,' she thought admiringly.

More somberly, he continued, "There are teachers, doctors, nannies, housekeepers, gardeners, the whole lot. Anyone we could think of who would have had contact with David."

"I came up with his schedule for the last month before…" Diane spoke up, then faltered. Pete reached over and took her hand. "We… we had him on a bit of a routine. School, then music lessons, then home. At the weekend, I would take him shopping, then to the park or the museum. He loves the dinosaur Museum." Her hand tightened around her husband's.

"I know this is hard, but can you walk me through what happened that day?" Carol asked.

Diane looked at her husband, then back to Carol. "He went to the football field with Marcus. David's bodyguard."

"He's been with us since David was born," Pete chimed in. "There's no way he's involved in this."

Carol nodded, but wrote the name down regardless. She looked at Diane, encouraging her to go on. "He was playing with some boys. David, I mean. He told Marcus he was thirsty and Marcus just can't say no. He loves David." Diane held back another sob. "So Marcus went to get the boys some drinks. He wasn't gone for more than ten minutes, he said. When he came back…"

"Did the boys see anything?"

She shook her head. "Nothing. David sat off to the side while the boys continued playing. No one thought to keep an eye on David. Why would they? They're just kids."

Carol gave her a moment before she asked, "Do you have a list of the names of the boys?"

Pete pointed to the sheet. "Right there."

"Good," Carol answered. "I'll have to talk to Marcus as well."

"In all this, I feel sorry for him," Diane said. "He's absolutely crushed by this; I don't think he's slept any more than we have."

"This is really good, Mrs. Cromwell," Carol consoled. "We'll be double-checking everything, staking out some of the places you took David on a regular basis. We'll do everything we can to find him."

"Whoever did this better hope you find David, because if I find this bastard who did it first…" Cromwell growled.

"That's off the record," Nathan interjected.

Carol shook her head in dismay. "Piss off. I wouldn't arrest a distraught father for saying something we'd all say in the same position."

Diane reached across the table and touched Carol's hand. "Thank you," she whispered.

"Thank me when we find your son, Mrs. Cromwell." Opening the file she had brought in, Carol took out two photos of the other missing boys. She passed one to Cromwell. "I was wondering if either of you recognized these two boys."

Cromwell picked up the photo of Thomas Young and shook his head. "No. Never seen him before." He slid it over to his wife, who also shook her head.

"How about this one?"

Again, Cromwell shook his head. "No, sorry. What does this have to do with David?"

"We're not sure yet," Carol admitted, "we're just trying to cover all our bases."

"They've gone missing, too?"

"I prefer that information stays in this room, Mr. Cromwell."

He nodded and looked over to his wife who had been silent. As she continued to pore over the photo, she began nodding her head slowly. "Yes. Yes, I know this boy." The room became deathly quiet. "Kieran somebody. Fisherman. Fisher."

Carol's ears perked up. " Yes. Kieran Fisher. How do you know him?"

"Don't you remember?" she asked her husband. When she was met with a blank expression, she faced Carol. "David was on a football team last year, but he broke his ankle and never went back."

Peter jumped in, pointing to the photo. "Right! He was that little spitfire of a player. Probably could have played in the eight-to-tens group, he was that good."

This was the best piece of news Carol had heard all day. She tried to check her excitement as she asked, "What was the name of the team?"

"Bradfield Knights," they answered simultaneously.

"This is good news, isn't it?" Diane asked.

"It definitely gives us something new to work with," Carol answered. The excitement had quickly evaporated when she realized that if the same man had abducted both boys, one was probably dead. She pushed that aside and stood up. "Thank you for coming. We'll contact you the second we find out anything, I promise."

As the trio left, she said to Kevin, "I want names of every boy on that team, last year and this year. I want parents, coaches, and every volunteer who was ever involved checked out."

"You got it."

--

He was cold. Bone-chillingly cold. Sound was muffled as if his ears were stuffed with cotton wool. He tried to reach up to touch them, but his movement was sluggish and difficult. Darkness surrounded him except for a faint glimmer of light far above his head. Pressure crushed his chest and his eyes squeezed shut against the pain. When he opened his mouth to gasp for breath, it filled with water. His eyes opened in a panic and he twisted his head around in an attempt to see where he was. Water. He was under water. He twisted to the left and saw the ghostly white image of a face looking back at him. He tried to escape to the right, twisting violently to the right, but was met by another pale apparition. The pressure in his chest increased as his panic escalated at an unbearable rate. Frantically he tried to kick up, up, up towards the light. But it felt as if hands had curled around his ankles and were holding him down. He tried to scream, but there was no sound.

Suddenly, without explanation, an insistent buzzing broke through the silence. He looked around, hoping to find the source. Where was it?

Buzz

Buzz

Buzz

Tony's eyes shot open and he almost fell off the couch in alarm. He fought through the familiar layers of disorientation towards full wakefulness and quickly glanced all around.

"I'm home. I'm on my couch. I fell asleep," he spoke out loud, reassuring himself of the facts.

Buzz

Buzz

The doorbell. He rubbed his hands over his face and staggered to the door.

Carol's smile fell when she saw his ashen face. Stepping inside quickly, she put her hand on his arm. "Tony. Are you all right? What's wrong?"

He brushed her questions aside, but found a welcome comfort in her light touch. "I fell asleep on the couch; had a dream when I heard the door. Were you out here long?"

Now it was her turn to wave away his question. "A few seconds. And I wouldn't call it a dream. You look absolutely stricken." As they walked into his living room, she gently directed him towards the couch. "Am I going to find any wine in the refrigerator?"

He looked up at her, his eyes still clouded. "Did you call earlier?"

"I did. But all I got was an engaged tone."

He looked over to the phone; it was off the hook. "Damn," he muttered, "I must have forgot… I was working earlier…" He rubbed his eyes again, then offered Carol a weary smile. "I suppose it's a good thing I put the wine in when I got home, then."

Her smile warmed his chilled bones. "I suppose it is. Don't go anywhere, yeah?"

She disappeared out of view into his kitchen and he closed his eyes attempting, once more, to regain his bearings. He was no stranger to night terrors and cold sweats. His ability to get into the twisted minds he studied ensured he was left with residual traces of their demons. He often wondered if his psychological difficulties with women stemmed partly from a subconscious desire to spare them the trials of his nocturnal screaming. A soft cough from the doorway alerted him to Carol's reappearance.

"I didn't want to scare you," she said. With a small smile, she added, "You looked white enough as it was."

He couldn't help but return her smile as he reached for the proffered glass. She took one look at his hand, put the glasses down on a nearby table and sat beside him.

"Jesus, Tony. You're shaking like a leaf." She took his hand in hers. "And you're freezing!" Her efforts to comfort now also became an attempt to create warmth. Flattening his hand she vigorously rubbed it back and forth between her own. Then she squeezed the tips of his fingers in her fist and repeated the process with his other hand. When she touched the back of her hand on his forehead, he recoiled.

"I had a bad dream; I'm not sick," he rebuked her sharply. She lowered her hand but not her gaze. "Sorry," he quickly apologized, "sorry. I just… you don't need to look after me."

With a level gaze, she asked, "And what if I want to?"

"I don't know why you would."

He almost felt the sting of hurt in her eyes and, when she withdrew the warm comfort of her hands, he felt the warmth ebb away from his soul.

She filled her empty hands with one of the glasses on the table. Curious, yet with an unmistakable distance between them, she asked, "Do you want to tell me about it? This dream of yours?"

He mentally chastised himself; he did this every time. Every time he let her get in close he pushed her away. He'd done it time and time again so why would she bother to confront him about it? Privately he admitted that it surprised him that she still hadn't become inured to his emotional deficiencies. He could still her hurt her. He sighed audibly and reached for his own glass.

"I'm used to my mind mulling over things in the quiet moments of sleep, but this… this was different."

"You've never had a nightmare before?"

Tony's brow furrowed as he pondered the question. "It's not that I've never had nightmares, but…" He thought again before trying to decipher feelings into words. "I've had disturbing dreams, but I'm generally not in them. I'm usually watching from some vantage point; I'm not the focus of the dream. This was entirely different. I was participating, not witnessing."

"What were you participating in?"

"I'm not quite sure." He took a sip of his wine and noticed his hands still had a slight tremor. "I was in water. Cold. Drowning. I tried to swim up to the light, but it felt like someone was preventing me from doing so. A grip around my ankle."

"God," Carol whispered and shuddered.

"Then you saved me." When he saw her look of confusion, he clarified, "The door bell rang and I woke up."

She smiled and raised her glass. "That's me. Always to the rescue."

"Yes," he agreed, a serious reply to her light-heartedness.

Carol steeled herself from the vulnerability behind his remark and asked, "What do you think it means? Your dream, I mean."

He tried to maintain an aura of clinical distance as he explained, "Well, at its most basic interpretation, a dream of drowning symbolizes a person's fear of being overwhelmed by their unconscious urges."

As much as his earlier comment may have stung her, she couldn't help but stifle a laugh. "Oh, really? And you're having this dream? How surprising is that, I wonder?"

"Thank you, Florence Nightingale," he retorted, but bit back a laugh of his own. The tension had dissipated just as quickly as it arrived developed, and for that, he was glad. He took another drink sip of wine and noted his now steady hand. With only a small measure of liquid left in his glass, he stood up and said, "Let me get the bottle."

"Oh, one of those nights, is it?" Carol teased.

From the kitchen, he called out over his shoulder, "And how was your day? I trust it was equally stressful but on a different level?"

"Yeah," she answered. "No thoughts of drowning but let me tell you, I know about being overwhelmed some times. Though there was good news today. Hopefully." He returned to the living room and topped up her glass. "Thank you." Sitting back down, he gestured for her to continue. "Peter and Diane Cromwell came in this afternoon."

"News about their son?"

"No, but Diane recognized one of the other missing boys. Kieran Fisher. He was on the same football team as David last year."

Tony's eyes widened in surprise. "That's fantastic. Have you got any leads?"

Carol spread her arms in a leisurely stretch. "I've got everyone tracking down every last person connected in some way to the team. Kevin's on it like a bloodhound."

"Good for him," Tony said. "And good for you."

Settling back into the comfort of his chair, she curled her legs up underneath her, and shrugged lightly. "I don't know. Tell me again when we find these boys." She closed her eyes and murmured, "I love this chair."

"I know," he said, "you assert authority over it every time you visit."

Her response was a sleepy laugh. He knew he should nudge her awake before sleep overtook her completely, but found it hard to resist his second opportunity that day to look at her without worry that she would catch something in his gaze he wasn't yet ready to reveal. 'Not that she didn't already know,' his inner voice remarked. 'That comment about unconscious urges? Don't kid yourself.' Resting his chin in his hand, he pondered the situation and wondered how in the world he'd got himself into it. And more importantly, how he would get out of it.

"Get a grip. Deal with it and move on."

Tony nearly jumped out of his skin at the words that were so Carol. He would have sworn he had heard her say them at that very moment. Leaning forward to see if she had actually spoken, he reprimanded himself. 'You're losing it, Tony, it's official.' Carol was curled up contently on his chair, the glass of wine balanced precariously on her knee. Standing up, he gently took it out of her grasp and placed it on the table. His floorboards quietly creaked as he walked over to a cupboard and pulled out a blanket. When he tucked it around her, she turned and settled herself more comfortably into the curves of the chair. Spoiling himself he brushed a strand of hair away from her face, then stepped back and returned to the couch. Picking up a book from the edge of his coffee table, he opened it to an indiscriminate page and tried to read as the nearby presence of Carol took up residence in his living room and in his head.

--

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her stretch sleepily and tug the blanket back up to her chin. He watched surreptitiously as she sighed heavily and started to wake fully.

After a small yawn, she asked lazily, "How long have I been sleeping?"

He looked at his watch. "About forty minutes."

"Mmmm. Sorry."

Her contentment belied her apology. "Oh, that's all right, Carol," he answered. "I'm secure enough in my self-worth to accept being second. To a chair." When he saw her guilty smile, he added, "I don't know why you just don't take it with you when you leave."

"Don't think it hasn't crossed my mind. But it won't fit in the boot of my car."

"Already taken measurements, have you?"

"Eons ago."

They enjoyed a moment of laughter before she asked, "What are you reading?"

He held up the book before tossing it on the table. "For my lecture on Friday. We're discussing phobias."

She raised her eyebrows approvingly. "That sounds interesting. One day I'm going to sit in on your class."

"I don't teach you enough as it is?" he asked, pretending to be hurt.

"It's an honour to sit at your feet every day and learn from your wisdom," she replied with exaggerated praise. "Is that better?"

"Much," he said. "So what about you? Any phobias I should be aware of?"

"You're not going to analyze me, are you?"

Tony shook his head. "Wouldn't dream of it, Carol. Just curious."

She cocked her head and gave it some thought before finally answering. "No, I don't think I have any phobias. Fears, most certainly, but nothing that would prevent me from doing something, no."

"What sort of fears?"

"Oh, you know, fear of disappointing people, fear of failure." She shrugged, as if dismissing her confession. "Nothing out of the ordinary. Oh, and clowns. Can't stand them."

"Coulrophobia," he supplied. There was a stretch of silence between them until he said, "Fear of failure isn't necessarily a bad thing, Carol, so long as you're in control of it and not the other way round. Use it as a motivator, not a deterrent."

She smiled, grateful for his support. "I thought you weren't going to analyze me," she joked.

"Don't worry, I won't send you a bill."

She combed her fingers through her hair and stood, picking up the blanket he'd given her. "I should go. Early day tomorrow."

He stood up too and caught hold of the trailing end blanket. "You… could stay. If you wanted." Her expression was one of mirth and surprise. "I mean, I'd take the couch. Of course."

"Of course," she repeated, the corner of her mouth twitching with amusement. Their hands met as they brought the corners of the blanket together, and they both stopped, as each waited for the other to make the next move. Carol broke the impasse, tugging the corners from his hands and guiltily enjoying his discomfiture before she spoke. "It's going to be an early morning as it is; I don't want to have to go home in the morning to get a change of clothes."

He nodded, unsure whether he was disappointed or relieved. 

"Besides," she added, "I would have gladly slept in your chair."

"Flattered as I am to be given ownership of my own furniture, don't you really mean your chair?"

"Tomato, tomahto."

He frowned and sternly replied, "Get out." Her laughter was warm and infectious and his unsympathetic expression didn't last long. "Come on."

At the door, she turned to him. All light-heartedness was set aside. "Are you going to be all right?" she asked him, concerned.

"Hmmm? Oh, earlier. Right." He shrugged. "I don't see why not. Chalk it up as another one of those things I've come to expect."

She put her hand on his arm. "I'm sorry."

He turned his hand over and cupped her elbow. "Let me know how tomorrow goes. By the sounds of it, the floodgates of evidence have opened. I hope it leads to something."

"So do I," she replied. Leaning forward, she kissed him on the cheek. "Sleep well, Tony. And I mean that."

After she was gone, he returned to the living room and found his gaze traveling over to their wineglasses still standing on the table. Not for the first time, he marveled at fate. And in this rare instance, it was good.

--


	3. chapter 3

With a renewed sense of purpose, Carol walked into the station with a determined step. An hour early and yet there in his familiar seat sat her detective inspector, Kevin Geoffries. His attention was on the spread of paper in front of him, his right hand occasionally jotting down a line or two on a notepad off to the side. 'Ambitious bastard,' Carol thought with a smirk. Out loud, she said, "Should I be worried about my job, Kev?"

The young man looked up and smiled. "Mornin', guv. Worried about your job? Nah, I don't think so. Superintendent Brandon, now that's another story."

"I'll be sure to let him know," she winked and walked over to the coffee machine. After pouring herself a cup, she crossed the short distance to Kevin's desk and refilled his.

"Ah, thanks."

She replaced the pot and pulled a chair up to his desk. "Just paving a road into your good graces for when you're my boss." She gestured towards the sheaf of papers across his desk. "What have we got?"

He sighed and tossed his pen on the desk. "A reminder of my poor maths skills," he quipped. "Let's see if I can get all this straight. Bradfield Knights under-eights team belongs to a league called YA- Young Achievers. There are twelve kids on each team and six teams in the league. So we've got seventy-two kids. Each team has a coach and an assistant; that's twelve. Each team plays each other twice, totaling thirty games, and there are two referees per game. That would be sixty referees, but they all do five games each, so that's really twelve." He took a deep breath and Carol waited patiently for him to get to the point. "Now, even assuming only one parent goes to their kid's games, that's another…," he paused and looked up at the ceiling, his mouth moving silently as he tried to figure out where he lost track.

"Seventy-two," Carol said.

"Right. Seventy-two."

"So the bottom line is, we've got at least seventy-two parents, twelve coaches and twelve referees to interview."

Kevin's eyes widened in surprise. "I'm glad that made sense to someone. Yeah, that's about right."

"And how far did we get yesterday?"

"Oh, good news there. Our team of five tracked down over fifty parents, nine coaches and," he referred to the pad of paper, "ten referees. Most of the kids are still on the league list this year. Those who aren't just moved on to the under-elevens division. Including," he paused for effect, "Thomas Young." Carol's eyes closed as she thanked the gods of chance. "We should have the rest done in no time."

"Anything strike you as out of the ordinary?"

Shaking his head, he confessed, "Nothing yet. A couple of complaints against a few of the fathers for threatening referees and fighting on the pitch, but not much else."

Now it was Carol's turn to shake her head. "Imagine that- fighting at a game with six and seven year olds."

"Everybody wants their kid to be the next Wayne Rooney."

"Lovely. Listen, check and see if there were any parents who signed their kid up, but pulled him off after a few weeks." 

"You think it might have been used as a scouting expedition?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "I don't want to overlook what's right in front of us, but I want to make sure all our bases are covered, too. Did you get a volunteer list?"

"Didn't need to. The refs and coaches are volunteers, but anything beyond that is all organized by the parents."

"That makes our jobs somewhat easier. Any mention of lurkers, adults with no kids, that sort of thing?"

"A few comments by over-cautious parents. Don's going to follow up today. There are six games this weekend and the Knights are playing. I thought maybe a couple of us could log in a bit of overtime and check them out."

She nodded her head approvingly. Years ago, Kevin had committed a horrendous blunder and had been exposed as an inside leak to the press. Once the case was over, Carol had reinstated him, against the unspoken opinion of the rest of the team, she was sure. Then last year, when she had been promoted to Detective Chief Inspector, she didn't hesitate in handing her old job to Kevin. He had yet to let her down.

"Good thinking, Kev. I'll run it by Brandon, but I think he'll go for it." She stood up and went back to the coffee machine. Holding up the pot, she asked him, "More coffee?"

--

She was crossing off another name from the referee list when Don's forlorn face appeared around the edge of her doorway. One look and she knew it wasn't good.

"Sorry, guv. Thomas Young and Kieran Fisher's parents are here. They want to speak with you."

Carol looked through her window into the main office and saw the parents talking agitatedly to Kevin. He held his hands up to them, obviously trying to calm them down but even from this distance she could tell they were having none of that. Stifling a groan, Carol stood up. "Give me a minute, yeah?" she asked Don. 

"Sure." He left her standing alone in her office, reminding herself that this was all part of the job, you took the good with the bad; it wasn't all champagne and glory. She squared her shoulders and walked over to join Kev. Her appearance sparked a renewed clamour for information.

"DCI Jordan? What's going on?"

Carol found herself faced with four highly agitated parents; their expressions reflecting a myriad of emotions – hope, despair, fear, anger. She held out her hand.

"You're Kieran's father."

He nodded, ignoring her hand he questioned, "We've heard from some of the other parents that you've been calling round the football league. Does this mean you have a lead?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Fisher, Mr. and Mrs. Young, I can assure you that we are doing everything we possibly can to find your sons. We've just learned they were both involved in the same football league. We're following up on every aspect of that lead that we can."

"But you're no closer to finding them, are you?"

Carol looked at Alan Fisher, the designated speaker for the group, it seemed. "Mr. Fisher, I understand -"

"Do you?" he bit out. "Do you understand what it's like to wake up in the morning and not hear your little boy playing? Do you understand what it's like to walk by your son's bedroom and see his bed made and know it's because he didn't sleep in it the night before? Do you understand what it's like to not be able to eat or sleep because you have no idea if your seven year old is alive to do the same?"

His wife burst into tears and burrowed her face into her husband's shoulder. Behind them, the Youngs embraced and Carol stood rigid, feeling every word of the stinging rebuke.

When it looked like the man hand run out of steam, she quietly admitted, "You're right; I don't understand. But what I do understand is that it's my job to find them, and I am trying desperately to do so. You have my word."

"I don't want your word, I want my son." With his arm around his wife, he steered her to the exit. In the doorway, he turned and vowed, "If you don't do something, you'll leave us no choice but to do something ourselves."

Carol stared at the doorway for several moments after the parents had left. "Christ," she muttered. The office was deathly silent. Finally, she turned and saw all eyes on her. "Well?" she asked rhetorically. "Get on with it." She looked at Kevin. "Are we any forward than we were this morning?"

"I might have something," he answered. "One of the referees, an Ian Coles, started about three years ago. No complaints so far, but I looked into his record- he was arrested when he was in university for taking explicit photos of minors. Claimed it was for an art course; charges were dropped."

"I guess that's something. Bring him in."

"Already on it. He's on his way."

"Thank God he missed the parents." Carol sighed. "Good job, Kev. Let me know when he gets here. I'll be working on the rest of my list if you need me." She addressed the rest of the office. "I know you all know the drill, but bear with me. If anything or anybody strikes you as odd or suspicious, let Kevin or me know and follow up on it. I'd rather not go through that incident with the parents ever again, if I can help it."

--

It was no coincidence that Carol chose the very same interrogation room for Ian Coles that had been chosen for Peter Cromwell the day before. Its sense of claustrophobia always seemed to help an interrogation. She looked across the table at the forty-year-old referee and noted he was already starting to sweat. No Peter Cromwell was he.

"Should I have a solicitor?" he asked.

"You're considered a possible witness, Mr. Coles," she explained, "not a suspect." 

"Oh," he replied needlessly, and wiped his palms on his thighs.

Carol looked down at the sheet of paper in front of her. "You've been a referee for the YA league for three years now?"

"Yes."

"You enjoy it?"

"I'm a volunteer. No sense volunteering if you don't enjoy it."

"Ever have any problems with any of the parents?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, a few times. Parents don't like the call or think I missed a call. Refereeing is the loneliest job in the world- you only get noticed when you do something wrong."

"I hear you," Don said from the corner before he was silenced by a look from Carol.

"How about the kids? Any problems with the kids?"

"Me? No. I love the kids. I know some of them were having problems at home."

"Were Kieran Fisher, Thomas Young and David Cromwell having problems at home?"

"I don't know if I should say," he answered nervously.

Carol leaned forward. "Do you really think it will hurt them to say?"

Coles shook his head sadly, "No, I suppose not. I don't know about Thomas; he's in the under-elevens now, I don't referee his age group. But I know Kieran's father… isn't the most understanding father in the world. Always yelling at him from the sidelines. The usual- 'Don't just stand there!' and 'You're playing like a girl! That's pathetic!', things like that. And David, well, I'm not sure what kind of home life he has being the son of a criminal."

"Were you close to the boys?"

"David, not really. Some henchman would swoop down and steer David and his mum away after the game. And he left about midway through the season anyway. Broke his ankle, if I remember. Kieran was a good boy. Best player I've seen, even if it wasn't good enough for his father. I even had him over to my house twice for tea. Fantastic boy."

"You had him over for tea?" Carol repeated.

"Yeah. Twice his father wasn't at the game and Kieran was left behind. No surprise those two games were the best of the boy's life. Anyway, I wasn't sure what the situation was like at home for him, so I took him back to mine. I called his parents," he added quickly, realizing the possible inference.

"When was the last time you saw Kieran?"

Coles frowned as he tried to remember. "I suppose it was his last match. A couple of days before he disappeared."

"And you haven't seen him since?"

"No!" He sat back and crossed his arms in self-protection. "I don't think I like the implication."

"No, I suppose not," Carol agreed. She slid some photographs across the table. "I'm not sure I like the implication behind these photos. Perhaps you'd like to explain them to me."

He looked down but didn't touch them. "Where did you get those?"

"They were kept on file after your arrest," Carol explained.

"Those charges were dropped. That's art," he defended.

She raised an eyebrow. "I wonder what the YA committee would think about it."

"They know," Coles answered. "In fact, I brought it to their attention before they hired me. I didn't want it to get uncovered later on and come as a surprise. They told me they'd keep it quiet, but gave me a year-long probationary period, just to protect themselves. There was nothing underhanded or lurid in what I did. They haven't had reason to fire me, and I haven't taken those kinds of photos since university. I passed the course over fifteen years ago!" 

"I'm sure the parents will be happy to hear that."

Holding up a hand, he stammered, "Now listen. There's no reason they need to know. The committee gave me a chance and I've done nothing wrong. Nothing." He laughed in disbelief. "I referee a game or two on the weekend. That's all." He wiped his hands on his pants again. "I think anything beyond this and I should have my solicitor with me." Although he was well within his rights to say so, he looked up at Carol as if asking permission.

She let the silence hang in the air a little longer than necessary before replying, "That's fine, Mr. Coles. I think we've got everything we need. Thank you." She stood up and began collecting the photos and paper.

Coles watched her, uncertain and unsettled. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Carol tapped the folder on the table, neatly straightening the contents. "Thank you, Mr. Coles. Don," she said to the large man in the corner, "please see Mr. Coles out."

She left the fidgety referee sitting in his seat and wondering what the hell had just happened.

--

"What do you think, guv? Is he our man?" Kevin asked. He had been on the other side of the two-way mirror during the questioning of Coles.

She crossed her arms and frowned. "I don't know. Seems like such a thin connection. I think whoever took these boys knew them, but didn't know them. Does that make sense?"

Kevin nodded. "Sure. They were familiar enough that the boys knew who they were, but they weren't someone with a direct connection to them."

She couldn't help but smile. "You'll have my job one day."

He smiled in return. "No, I've just been around Dr. Hill too much."

"Stealing tips from the master, are you, Kev? Don't worry, I won't tell him." They shared a welcome moment of respite, then she went on, "Find out more about our Mr. Coles. If he did take the boys, he would need a place to take them to, wouldn't he?"

"Should we get a warrant for his house?"

Pressing her lips together, she shook her head. "We don't have enough to get one, and as desperate as I am to find these boys, I don't want to ruin someone's life in the process, got it?"

"Yep. So I'll do some financial checks, see if he's got another house, that sort of thing."

"Exactly. In the meantime, make sure everyone continues calling whoever is left on their list, following up on whatever hunch they might have. Just because we're focussing on Coles doesn't mean we can drop everything else."

"Right. I'll let everyone know what's going on."

"Thanks, Kev."

He noticed the weariness around her eyes. "Listen, why don't you get off early? You look like you could use the break." She was about to interrupt when he said, "If anyone asks, I'll tell them you're following up on something."

She flashed him a smile of appreciation. "Thanks."

"Enjoy the weekend, then come back fresh on Monday."

Her smile dropped. "Ah, shit! The weekend." Kevin's confused expression asked her to go on. "I talked to Brandon. He gave the okay for extra hours this weekend. For the football matches." Kevin's face lit up in understanding. "I've got the Knights game on Saturday. See who volunteers to help out with the other five games. We only need one person at each game so it shouldn't be hard getting help. If more people want to help, let them."

"I'll do one, so we only need four."

"Good. If you have any problems scratching up the other four, call me."

"No problem. Now at risk of subordination, get out of here."

--

When she walked into the quiet classroom she found Tony stepping tentatively around his desk, eyes down, scanning the floor.

"Lose a contact lens?"

Tony jumped, startled. "One day, one of us is going to have a heart attack." She replied with a grin. "Anyway, no, I am not looking for a contact lens." He continued his careful pacing. "Today we continued our study into phobias."

"Right. I remember you mentioning that."

"We talked about the different ways someone can overcome their phobias."

"Teach me."

He looked up to gauge her seriousness. When he found her to be sincere, he nodded. "Okay, your fear of clowns, for instance. Since it is a psychological fear, drugs rarely play a part in the process. I could prescribe a benzodiazepine such as Valium to help calm you down, but it wouldn't do anything long term." He looked under his desk. "Cognitive behavioural therapy walks you through your fear; it teaches you to understand the thinking process behind your fear and how to challenge your thought patterns so that the symptoms are less likely to occur." He stood up straight and put his hands on his hips as he looked around. "Part of the cognitive therapy is exposure therapy."

"Expose me to my fears?"

He pointed at her appreciatively. "That's it. The human body simply cannot sustain the high levels of anxiety a phobia creates for more than thirty minutes or so. You learn to tolerate the anxiety until you realize it starts to fall and nothing catastrophic has happened to you in the meantime. The degree of exposure is gradually reduced until the person discovers they have overcome their fear." 

"Gives credence to the saying, 'Face your fears'," she remarked.

"Exactly," he said.

"Okay, so now that you've taught me the only way to overcome my fear is to subject myself to creepy face-painted weirdos, what does this have to do with what you're doing now?"

"Hmmm? Oh. Today one of my students volunteered to put this theory into practice. Acceptance through exposure."

"Exposure to what?"

"Spiders."

Now it was Carol's turn to jump. She back-pedaled quickly and started brushing down her clothes. "You're right. One day one of us is going to have a heart attack." When she saw the glimmer of amusement behind Tony's eyes, she glared. "You did that entire wind-up on purpose."

He grinned. "Yes, but I wasn't lying. We exposed her to a couple of spiders, and one got away when she panicked. I dismissed the class early to prevent him from getting stepped on." His eyes lit up when he spotted something in the corner. "Ah, there you are." He quietly walked over and scooped up the tarantula into the palm of his hand.

"Jesus!" Carol exclaimed. "That thing isn't a spider, it's a bloody monster. It would eat Nelson."

Tony tilted his head thoughtfully. "Probably." To the spider he said, "Come on, back in your cage before the entymology lecturer kills me. Unless you want to visit Carol."

"I don't think so! You can keep that eight-legged hairy multi-eyed thing over there, thank you very much."

As Tony gently placed the spider into its glass house, he shook his head sadly. "I never would have thought that about you, Carol. Making rash judgments based on first appearances. God knows what you thought when you first met me."

She smirked. "Well whatever it was, I'm sure it was tempered by the fact that when you looked back at me, you only had two eyes. And lovely blue ones to boot." He flushed at the compliment and she tried not to laugh out loud.

"Speaking of eyes," he said, deflecting her comment, "yours look tired. How did today go?"

She sat on the corner of his desk and filled him in.

"Do you think Coles is your man?" Tony asked when she was finished.

Shaking her head, she admitted, "Honestly? No. I'm not letting go of this angle, but really, I just don't see it being someone so close to the children."

"You think it's someone the children recognize, but not someone they had direct contact with."

Carol laughed. "I think you've got a student in Kevin. He said the exact same thing."

"Oh really?"

"Don't tell him I told you."

Tony mimed a zipper gesture across his lips. "What else happened today?"

She feigned ignorance. "What do you mean?"

He would have none of it. "Something else happened today. Something that rattled you. What was it?"

Resting her chin on her chest, she closed her eyes and let out a long breath. Her mouth twitched a few times before she finally confessed, "Kieran Fisher and Thomas Young's parents came in today." She knew she wouldn't have to say another word in order to get Tony to understand, but she carried on anyway. "Word spread through the parents of the league that we were asking questions. So they came in to find out what we know. Of course, right now, we don't know anything."

"But they didn't want to believe it."

"Right. But I can't fabricate information out of thin air, can I?" She looked at him, grateful to get this off her shoulders. "Then, in very blunt terms, I was told I couldn't possibly understand what they were going through, and was left with the silent accusation that perhaps for that reason, I wasn't doing my job to the best of my abilities." Looking away, she pressed her fingertips against her eyelids. He remained silent, giving her this moment. Eventually, she spoke. "I know; fear of failure is okay, so long as I use it as a motivator, not a deterrent." She opened her eyes and saw his warm smile. "See? Kevin's not the only one taking notes."

"Good, because there's a test at the end of the year."

She smiled back. "Oh, listen, do you have plans for tomorrow?"

He blinked at her change of subject, then replied, "No, I don't think so, why?"

"Then I've got plans for you. I'll pick you up at noon."

Tony's eyes narrowed. "This doesn't involve clowns, does it?"

Her smile blossomed into a laugh. "No." She slid off his desk and said, "When I left your place last night, there was still wine in the bottle. I don't suppose it's still there, is it?"

"You would suppose correctly."

"Brilliant. Let's have at it." She held up a warning hand. "But the spider stays here."

--


	4. chapter 4

"I have to admit, Carol, when you told me you had plans for today, this never crossed my mind." He rocked from foot to foot to relieve the dull ache through his legs from standing on the damp grass. From their vantage point they could look right across the field; a vibrant chows of children running about, kicking balls and shrieking with laughter. Their parents, together with a smattering of other spectators, haphazardly ringed the pitch. Today half the children wore Bradfields Knights' navy blue, their opponents, the vivid red of the Easton Red Devils.

"Just what we need," Tony remarked, a team that not only conjures up images of Manchester United, but labels the children as little spawns of Satan." This got a choke of laughter out of her, but whether or not it was because of his comment or the look from a parent a couple of yards away, he wasn't sure.

"We're here to keep our eye out for the children, not analyze them," Carol reminded him.

"Right."

Somehow, amidst the apparent bedlam, order was restored and two teams of six obediently trotted out onto the pitch. Two referees, clad in their black shirts and shorts spoke briefly with the children, then blew their whistles to signal the start of the game. Though their eyes were on the action on the field, Carol and Tony's focus was on the people around them.

"I'm not even sure what I should be looking for," Carol whispered.

Leaning into her shoulder, he answered, "Look for someone standing off by himself. He won't want to be engaged in a conversation that might lead to questions about his child. Perhaps someone who is watching the game, but isn't as animated about it as most people."

"Go and get the ball, Jeremy! Don't just stand there!" bellowed a man who was running up and down the touchline to shout commands to his son.

"So we'll rule him out," Carol muttered under her breath.

"Kick the ball!" the same man yelled.

"You know," Tony said to her, "I don't discount the positive aspects of organized sports for children. It instills a sense of order and immediate reciprocation when that order is broken. It allows children to grow socially within their peer group. However," he looked down at the overbearing parent, "it's a rather vicarious exercise for a parent like that, isn't it? Maybe he tore a ligament in school and could never play again. Or perhaps he was never as good on the pitch as he was in his mind. In either case, he's now hoisted his dreams of athletic prowess onto the tiny shoulders of a six year-old boy. I should be handing out business cards."

Now Carol laughed out loud.

"Offside!" Tony shouted.

Four heads turned and looked at him. One mother spoke up. "They don't call offside in this league. The kids have a hard enough time remembering not to touch the ball with their hands." Her response was tempered by a smile that Tony returned.

"Sorry," he apologized.

"Your first game?" she asked.

"Yes."

She squinted her eyes. "I don't recognize you two. Who's your boy?"

"Oh," Tony stumbled, "we don't… we're not…"

"We're researching a book," Carol supplied helpfully.

The woman's eyes widened, and several other heads turned to listen.

"Come on, Jeremy, pay attention!" ordered the now-familiar voice.

"Yes," Tony told her. "It's about the long-term psychological damage that a child can incur in a child with parents who try and live their failed sporting dreams vicariously through them. I think we're going to call it, 'Damned if you do, damned if you don't'."

The small audience knew exactly where that comment was directed, and apparently, so did the father, as he glared over at Tony but fell silent.

"Are you really writing a book?" a man to Tony's left asked.

"Not writing, just researching," he answered and held out his hand. "Dr. Tony Hill."

"William Hinds."

Tony took a step back and made the introductions. "This is Carol Jordan."

William shook her hand. "Nice to meet you, Carol. Are you a doctor, too?"

She smiled. "No. Just a student."

"So is it just parents and psychologists who come to these games?" Tony asked.

"For the most part, yeah," Hinds answered. He turned his attention momentarily to the game. "Good shot, Ethan! Keep it up!" He quickly looked at Tony. "That's okay, isn't it? To yell out encouragement?"

Tony smiled. "That's fine, Mr. Hinds. Positive reinforcement is good."

Carol worded the next question carefully. "Any other kind of person show up? Someone who isn't a parent or family member?"

Frowning as he gave it some thought, he replied, "Sure. Some of the neighbours like to support the team. You get the odd face here and there, but most of us all know each other. That's why Margaret asked you who your son was- new faces."

"Any other new faces in the last couple of weeks?"

"None that we haven't ended up chatting up. There is one, though…" he looked around. "Yeah. The man with the gray jacket and binoculars, watching the game from his car. Can you see him?"

Carol and Tony followed Hinds' gaze and saw the gray jacketed man leaning back against the bonnet of his car, observing the game through a pair of lens.

"I think Margaret spoke with him." He leaned forward. "Margaret!" When she turned to his call, he asked, "You talked to that bloke in the parking lot, didn't you?"

She nodded. "Last week. Duncan Amerson. Said he was from Newcastle scouting players. Imagine, scouting six year-olds." Her tone spoke volumes. "He didn't say much else so I finally gave up."

Carol's ears perked up and Tony picked up on it immediately. He looked at her and remarked innocently, "Might be an interesting angle to research- the pressures of succeeding, by people outside the family unit. What do you think? Should we have a word?"

She nodded thoughtfully, though her head was already racing ahead. "I think that might be an angle we should explore."

They shook hands with Margaret and William, and thanked them both before making their way over to the car park.

"What do you think?" Carol queried.

Tony shrugged. "Hard to say." He looked back at the pitch, nothing whistling past his antennae. "But I suspect it's the best lead we'll have today."

The man's attention was so focused on the view through his binoculars that he was oblivious to the crunch of their footsteps on the gravel parking lot. 

He jumped, obviously startled, when Carol spoke. "Enjoying the game, Mr. Amerson?"

He lowered the binoculars and squinted at her. "What? Who… who are you?"

She reached into her pocket and flashed her warrant card. "Carol Jordan, Bradfield CID. Enjoying the game?"

"I… what…" he stammered.

"Because when we arrived, it didn't look like your binoculars were on the pitch, Mr. Amerson."

"I… there was a lull in the game. I was just… bored."

"Bored? Well why don't you come down to the station, then? That will give you something to do."

He narrowed his eyes. "On what charge?"

"Oh, no charge," Carol replied sweetly. "Would you like me to come up with one?" She took out a piece of paper and wrote down his license plate number.

"Trust me, you don't want that," Tony warned with a shake of his head.

"Fine. I'll… I'll meet you there in about fifteen minutes."

"Make it ten, Mr. Amerson, and consider it a courtesy of the Bradfield police. But don't make me come after you, because you definitely do not want that."

They watched him get into his car and turn the ignition. As he pulled away, Carol looked at Tony. "Anything?"

Folding his arms, he said, "I don't know. I didn't see anything in the car that was child-oriented. Nothing that would coerce a child into the vehicle. And Hinds himself said that Amerson was relatively new to the area. Not much time to get to know the children enough to generate the kind of trust he would need to lure them away. Besides, both the Young and the Fisher boys went missing before Amerson showed up."

"He could have frequented the playing fields of the other teams the Knights visited."

"True."

"Well, let's see where this gets us and worry about the rest as it presents itself."

A loud cheer drifted across from the pitch and Carol and Tony turned to see a group of boys decked out in Bradfield blue embracing and high-fiving each other in celebration of their goal.

--

"Paula, I didn't think you'd be here," Carol said as she and Tony walked into the office.

The young woman shrugged. "I figured someone needed to hold down the fort just in case anyone managed to find anything. And it looks like you did- he's in interrogation room one."

"Oh, very prompt, is he? Good." She handed Paula a slip of paper with Amerson's name and registration. "See if that pulls up anything on file."

"Sure thing."

Outside the interrogation room, Carol set the ear piece in place so that she would be able to hear any comments or questions Tony might give her from the other side of the mirror.

"Suggestions?" she asked him.

He tilted his chin up in thought. "Try to trip him us as soon as you can. The story about being a scout is an obvious lie. I don't think he has the wherewithal to plan a lie past the first few layers. Once you've got him, you'll see where it leads."

She nodded. "Okay," and stepped into the room.

Tony's destination was the room directly beside it. The tinny speakers picked up the sound from the microphones next door, and he heard Carol's chair scrape against the floor as she settled in.

"Thank you for coming in, Mr. Amerson," she said by way of introduction.

The man all but pouted. "Didn't think I had much choice."

Ignoring his comment, Carol asked, "How long have you been in Bradfield?" Her gaze dared him to lie.

He didn't. "I'm, I'm from Newcastle, actually. I'm a scout."

"Scout?"

"Yeah, you know, I go to games and see who has the potential to turn professional."

"At six years old?"

Holding out his hands, he explained, "It's a competitive business. You need to get them when they're young."

"I bet," she muttered. More clearly, she asked, "Why come all this way? No football clubs in Newcastle?"

"No sense living in Newcastle and being a scout there; a hundred blokes are trying to find the next Alan Shearer there. I think there's a lot of untapped potential here in Bradfield."

"Ask him who Bradfield's leading scorer is," Tony spoke into the microphone that fed into Carol's ear piece.

"They've got some fairly good players on that team, yeah?"

Amerson nodded in agreement. "They do."

"Especially that one, oh, what's his name, the one who has the most goals this season. What's his name?"

Amerson's face went blank. "I… it's…" he snapped his fingers as if the gesture would conjure up the answer.

"Not much of a scout, is he?" Tony remarked.

"Right," Carol said, "let's start at the beginning again. You're from Newcastle. What are you doing in Bradfield?"

He paused, weighing his options. Impatient, Carol placed three photos across the surface of the table. They were copies of the same three photos that were pinned to her team's evidence board down the hall.

"Kieran Fisher. Thomas Young. David Cromwell. Do you know these boys?"

He glanced at them nervously. "No."

"They all played for the Bradfield Knights. They've all since gone missing."

Amerson's eyes widened in shock when he realized where Carol was going with her comments. "No! I had nothing to do with that! Nothing! I've never seen those boys in my life, I swear."

A short rap on the door punctuated his claim, and he jumped. Paula leaned around the door. "Sorry, but I thought you might want to take a look at this."

Carol looked at Amerson. "Excuse me for a moment, will you?"

Outside, she joined Paula and Tony.

"What have we got?" she asked Paula.

Handing her a file, Paula answered, "A probable reason why Mr. Amerson's been visiting Bradfield lately."

Tony looked over Carol's shoulder as she read. A cursory sweep of the papers was enough. In the file, along with two speeding tickets, a DWI charge and one for indecent exposure was a restraining order.

Carol looked up at Paula. "Eileen Ferris?"

"She works in the same office as Amerson. She commutes every day. From Bradfield."

"Let me guess," Tony said, "her son plays for the Knights."

Carol raced through her memory banks. "Kyle Ferris."

Paula nodded. "You got it."

"Shit," she said.

"Explains why he's been at the games these last few weeks," Tony remarked.

"And watches from his car," Carol added.

"He's a stalker," Paula finished.

"Shit," Carol swore again.

Tony thumbed in the direction of the evidence room. "I'll be in there when you're done."

Carol sighed as she watched him go down the hall.

"Sorry, guv," Paula said.

Turning to her, Carol shook her head. "Not your fault, is it? We can only hope the rest of them are having better luck than we are."

She returned to the interview room and began collecting the photos. 

"What's going on?" Amerson asked.

"Besides the fact that you're in violation of a restraining order?"

"The limitations are fifty yards outside of work. The parking lot is fifty-eight yards away." Whatever else he was going to say froze in his throat when he saw Carol's look.

"You're free to go, Mr. Amerson," was all she said. As he stood up, she tried another approach. A little more softly, she asked, "Listen. I don't suppose you've noticed anyone out of the ordinary during your visits, have you?"

He understood the severity of the situation and shook his head sadly. "I'm sorry. But I don't really…"

"Pay much attention to anyone other than Eileen Ferris?" Carol finished, the edge back in her voice.

His gaze didn't meet her eyes and he shuffled out of the room.

"Shit," Carol said for the third time that day.

--

He saw shallow graves and lifeless limbs and empty eyes. Pleas of mercy and cries for help rang in his ears. And, though there might have been similarities between the events in his mind and the fate of the three boys staring back at him from the evidence board, he would have had to admit it wasn't them he was thinking of at all. He was thinking of the one case that had fascinated and plagued him for over five years.

Maggie Thomas, now dead by her own hands, but not before being responsible for the death of others. Five, in fact. Five girls, lured by the gentle and welcoming façade of a killer. He had taken an interest in the case almost seven years ago, when the well of suspects had run dry. She was a counselor at one of the local teen centers; friendly, unassuming, well-liked by everyone who knew her. And deadly. As the disappearances increased, Tony's focus turned to her but, not surprisingly, he wasn't believed. And young girls continued to disappear. Runaways, some claimed. A shadowy figure from the outside, others said. But Tony knew better and a sitting that started as a standard questioning of a possible witness became a marathon of dueling minds until, at long last, Maggie slipped. Once the police got over their astonishment she was charged, and the disappearances stopped.

But for Tony, it was only the beginning of a five-year quest to find the bodies. The voices at the edge of sleep demanded it, and he did all he could to pacify them. At first he believed Maggie's inability to tell him was her way of maintaining the odd bond that had developed between them. It was only later that he realized it wasn't that she wouldn't tell him- she couldn't. In an attempt to keep her sane, her subconscious wouldn't allow her to remember the horrors she had committed. So for five long years, every Thursday, Tony would visit and try to coax the information out of her as carefully as possible. Then one day, through fate and mischance, he didn't show up and Maggie took her own life, thinking he had given up on her. He arrived the next day, too late, but not too late to discover she had at long last remembered where the children were buried. She had drawn a map on the wall in her own blood.

As he reflected on that case, he realized how much it shaped him. Up to the day he met Maggie, everything he had ever known about psychology was all theory. He'd rarely had an opportunity to put his education into practice. Of course, he had had the odd case here and there, a smattering of patients who genuinely needed his help. But nothing like this. Nothing that delved so deeply into the dark recesses of the human mind. Nothing that forced him to re-evaluate and re-examine the workings of his own subconscious. And he didn't like what he discovered. The things he saw staring back at him through Maggie's ebony eyes reflected his own dark path, and how easily it could overwhelm him as it had her. He had seen what an unchecked desire could do to a person; what kind of horrors it could trigger in an otherwise sane person.

He had learned to tamp it down, to push his desires aside, in an effort not to become the people he treated. Yet it had left his life empty. Every moment spent with Carol showed him that. So now he was trying to find some kind of middle ground between living and existing and he was just starting to get things to resemble something normal. The three boys gazed at him from the board. He wondered if the voices would ever go away. Letting out a ragged breath, he gave his head a slight shake.

"Welcome back," Carol greeted softly.

Turning his head sharply, he asked, "How long have you been standing there?"

She shrugged. "About five minutes. You looked deep in thought." She left her invitation unspoken.

"I was thinking about Maggie," he confessed. "And you."

An eyebrow rose. "I suppose I'll take the compliment where I can get it."

The lines around his eyes and mouth were softened by warmth. "I suppose I could learn how to word things better." Encouraged by her smile, he went on, "You and Maggie –opposite ends of my internal scale. Light and dark."

"I'm not perfect, Tony."

"I know, but unfortunately, you're my anchor, whether you like it or not." He smiled with her, then more serious, he said, "It's taken me a long time to admit that to myself; that I need… that anchor. I look at this case and for whatever reason, whatever the meaning, I'm reminded of Maggie. And I'm not sure I can go through that… go back to that again, Carol."

She put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "It's the children."

"It's the uncertainty about the children," he told her. "What happened to them, why did it happen? We can always work those things out in our minds." He looked at her with pained eyes. "But where are they? Where?"

They stared at the photos for a long time. The photos held no answers.

--


	5. chapter 5

The weekend came and went, and they began the new week much the same way they finished the last one –with three missing boys and few leads. The rest of the team uncovered nothing of merit at the other games, and Carol found herself sitting at her desk, eyes cast downward, looking at nothing. She was startled back to full awareness when the dark-haired figure of Tony crossed her peripheral vision and entered her the office.

"What in the world are you doing here?" she asked.

"Good morning, Carol," he replied. "I'm fine, thank you for asking. And you?" 

She conceded the point with a grin. "Lovely, thank you. Now, what in the world are you doing here?"

He dropped unceremoniously into the chair facing her desk. "I don't teach on Mondays and Thursdays, you know that. I'm just going to spend the day mulling over the case, so I thought - "

"-you'd hang about my office all day?"

His voice had just the right measure of wounded feelings when he replied, "No. Not hanging." He paused for the right word. "Mulling. Besides, I won't be in your office, hanging or otherwise. I'll be in the evidence room. You won't even know I'm here."

"Yeah, right," she answered, unconvinced. Looking down at her desk again, she appeared to be giving an issue some thought, and when she looked up, all playfulness was gone from her voice. "When we talked about this the other day, I thought perhaps you were thinking of stepping back for a while."

She didn't have to explain what 'this' was; he knew what she meant. He crossed his legs, ankle on knee, and absently picked at the hem of his trousers. He wrestled with his own thoughts before finally admitting, "It's the only thing I'm good at."

"Tony…"

He stopped her with a smile. Amending his comment, he said, "I'm in this far; I can't very well quit now, can I? Next time I'll stop before I get started."

Both knew, of course, that there would be no such next time. Carol may have chastised him for his underestimated opinion of himself, but she also knew that what he did wasn't just a job, it was a gift. To ask him to set it aside would be like asking her to not catalogue everyone she met by the blank spaces on a police report. It was simply who they were. And, if she was truthful, setting aside any personal concern for him, she needed him. As a police officer, she felt obligated to use every tool at her disposal in order to do her job well. And if that meant asking Tony to walk the edge of his sanity to do it, she would. It was her personal feelings for him that clouded the issue. Or maybe it was her feelings that helped her help him. An anchor, he had called her. Seeing the way he allowed a case to consume him with little regard for his own well being, she now knew what he meant.

She opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted by a knock on her doorframe. It was Kevin, wearing a new suit and a grin.

"Yes, Kev?"

"You are not going to believe this one."

Carol and Tony exchanged puzzled looks before they stood and followed Kevin towards the evidence room.

"Spill it," Carol told him.

Over his shoulder, he answered, "The Fishers and the Youngs sent someone in to look at our evidence."

"What?"

"I didn't let her in," Kevin protested. "She came up to the office and when I turned to find Don, she was gone. We found her in the evidence room." He paused for dramatic effect. "It was almost like she knew where to go," he added with mock amazement. As they got to the office, Kevin gestured at the woman through the window. "Brenda Woodson. Psychic."

Carol coughed out a laugh. "You're joking." When she saw the look on the young detective's face, she groaned. "You're not joking."

"Interesting," was all Tony said.

Kevin held open the door and ushered Carol and Tony in before following suit. A tall willowy blonde who could have passed for anywhere from thirty-five to forty-five stood in front of the white board, eyes closed, fingertips brushing across the pictures of the three boys. Every so often, she would say a word or phrase and Don, sitting in a nearby chair, would dutifully write it down. When he saw the trio enter, he looked at Carol and crossed his eyes. She glanced at his notepad and saw "-man", "-glass", "long narrow path", and "-nutter" with an arrow pointing in the direction of the woman.

"Are you writing this down?" the woman asked.

"Don't you know?" Don quipped.

When she turned to glare at him, she noticed the arrival of Carol, Tony and Kevin. "Oh," she apologized, "I didn't realize you had come in."

"You're not very good at this, are you?" Kevin asked innocently.

"Brenda Woodson," she introduced herself.

Carol nodded. "Carol Jordan. Please," she gestured to the board, "continue."

Brenda frowned and shook her head as she returned her attention to the photos. "It's very dark. Cloudy. They're not alone, yet I don't see anyone with them." She looked down to see if Don was taking notes.

"Oh, right. Sorry," he said and wrote down her thoughts.

"I see a man; an authority figure. Not a father. Someone in a uniform. A dark uniform."

"I don't suppose there's a nametag?" Kevin asked.

She ignored his tone. "No. It's dark everywhere. The children can't breathe."

Tony spoke up. "Inside or outside?"

The three officers swiveled towards him, amazed at his seriousness.

"Outside. It's cold."

Carol folded her arms across her chest. "Right. Outside, cold, dark, a man. Anything else?"

"Mock me all you want, Miss Jordan. I happen to have a 68 success rate."

"Is that before or after you've seen our evidence board?"

"The parents of these poor boys asked me to help," she replied evenly, "and that's what I'm trying to do. I'll be sure to tell them of your gratitude."

Carol's eyes hardened at the challenge. "You can tell the parents that, as a courtesy, I didn't arrest you for entering a police investigation without so much as a by-your-leave. And you can tell them we are doing everything we can."

The woman reached into her pocket and pulled out a business car. Handing it to Don, she said, "As a courtesy," she stressed the word, "I would appreciate it if you would call me as you gather more information. I might be able to help."

Don took the card and remarked, "You know, I have to admit, you're - "

"-not what you expected?" she finished.

His eyes widened in feigned surprise. "You are psychic!"

She glanced around the room, looking for measure of support, when Tony smiled. "Welcome to my world," he told her.

Finding some kind of sympathetic spirit, she held out her hand. "And what kind of world would that be?"

"Psychology," he answered, and shook her hand. "Dr. Tony Hill."

When their hands clasped, her smile disappeared. Her dark brown eyes bored into his startled blue irises. 

"What is it?" Carol asked, her voice breaking the silence that had descended upon the office.

"You're with them," the psychic whispered.

His first instinct was to pull away from this woman who had pinned him with her uncomfortably intense scrutiny. But his innate curiosity quickly overcame his apprehension and he held on to her hand. "Go on," he said.

Carol knew him well enough to recognize where he was going. The voice in her head said, 'Let him.' The voice in her heart cautioned, "Tony…"

His gaze never left the face of the woman in front of him. "Go on," he repeated.

"It's cold where you are," she began.

Kevin snickered. "And dark. Yeah, we've - " Carol's hand on his arm silenced him.

"There's a light above your head," she continued. "You're trying to reach it, but you can't. Someone's holding you down." Her brow furrowed in concentration, her sight straining to see the unseen. "You can't breathe."

Whether it was her power of persuasion or the clarity of his recollection of the dream he had had on his couch nights before, Tony could feel the pounding increase in his chest and ears; his heart hammering out a panicked staccato. He opened his mouth to draw in more air, a subconscious effort to try and relieve the anxiety.

"You're drowning," she said.

"That's enough," Carol broke in as she put an arm across Tony's chest and gently sat him down in a chair.

Brenda looked at Tony excitedly. "You know where they are." When she felt all eyes but Tony's on her, she corrected herself. "Of course, he doesn't know, but on a subliminal level, he's already putting the pieces together. Images he's seeing are in response to a psychic connection he's somehow made with the boys."

Carol took in a long deep breath in order to prevent the first retort on the tip of her tongue, which was somewhere between "Give me a break" and "Bullshit". Instead, she calmly offered, "Or, it could be his subconscious working out the bits of evidence he's been seeing for the past week. Here, in this very tangible office." Carol cut off the psychic's next words. "As it is, I think we're finished here for today. Thank you for coming in. We've got your card; we'll be sure to call you if we need any further… assistance."

The woman saw Carol's protective hand still resting on Tony's shoulder. "I see," she murmured.

"Well, you are psychic," Don noted helpfully.

As the three officers watched her stalk out of the office, Tony stood up and grabbed a marker. With a slight tremble in his hand, he drew a long vertical line on the white board, dividing the existing notes from a long blank column where he began jotting down words in his familiar block printing.

-DARK  
-COLD  
-WATER  
-LONG NARROW PATH  
-GLASS  
-MAN (UNIFORM, AUTHORITY FIGURE)  
-LIGHT OVERHEAD

"You're not taking her seriously, are you, Dr. Hill?" Kevin asked when he realized what Tony was doing.

Stepping back from the list, he capped the marker. "Why not? Discounting the fact that scientists have mapped out less than twenty percent of the human brain, let's look at this with the question of 'why not' rather than 'why should we'. It certainly can't hurt, can it?" When there was no reply from the room, he made a circular motion around his list. "What does this say to you?"

Kevin was the first to venture an opinion. "I know she said outside," Tony added this to the list, "but my first reaction is, it's a bathtub. Light overhead could be a light fixture, someone's holding them down while they look up."

"Or it could be a light from an outside source," Don offered, picking up Kevin's trail of thought. "The glass represents a window; sunlight coming through."

"Okay," Carol said, conceding the validity of the exercise, but also feeling compelled to don the mantle of Devil's Advocate. "What is the long narrow path? The man in uniform?"

"Dark uniform," Kevin added. "Weren't those referee uniforms black?"

Everyone exchanged a look, then turned their attention to Carol. Sighing, she said, "Right. Let's see if we can get a search warrant for Ian Coles' residence."

"I thought you said we didn't have enough," Don said.

She touched her chin with her fingertips. "I don't know, but we might as well try. We've got his prior arrest, and his accessibility to the children. Maybe we'll get a sympathetic judge. Get on with it, Kev. See what the magistrate says." Kevin nodded. He got to the door when Carol called after him, "And for God's sake, don't even say the word 'psychic'!"

--

Don collected his notes and left Carol and Tony alone, to stare at the board. They stood shoulder to shoulder, as if they could share thoughts with each other through the touch. Carol's mouth twitched into a small smile as she glanced sideways at him.

"Okay. I'm fairly confident I know what you're thinking –or at least, what I'm thinking –but know I want to hear it. What do you make of it?"

He mirrored her sideways glance, though he had to work on the smile. "Anything in particular?"

"Don't be difficult," she chastised him. "Duncan Amerson. Ian Coles. The psychic."

"Brenda Woodson?" he asked, a bit of playfulness now creeping into his voice. He noted Carol hadn't addressed the woman by name, but instead issued her a label.

"Yeah, whatever," Carol yielded. "What do you make of it?"

He snapped the marker lid on and off several times. "Well, I'm fairly confident in ruling out Duncan Amerson. While I don't dismiss the fact that he has his own psychological problems that should be addressed sooner rather than later, he's a stalker, not a child abductor. Even without the injunction, I think it would have been hard to link him to these disappearances." He saw Carol nod her head in agreement. "Ian Coles…" he rubbed the back of his neck and clicked his tongue behind his teeth. "I don't know. He's got the opportunity and the trust factor. But does he have the means? And more importantly, does he have the motivation? He's been around these children for three years. Why start now? What is the trigger for these events to take place?"

"That's your angle, isn't it?" she nudged him good-naturedly. Unable to resist, she prodded, "And what about the –Brenda?"

His serious reply was betrayed by a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth. "She'll never be able to read my mind like you do, Carol."

She threw him a withering scowl. "Do you want to know what I'm thinking right now?"

He decided a sheepish demeanor was his best means of coming out of this one relatively unscathed. "Probably not, no."

--

The door opened a fraction, and a pair of cautious eyes greeted them. "Yes?"

Flashing his warrant card, he introduced himself. "Kevin Geoffries, Bradfield CID. DI Paula McIntyre," gesturing to the woman beside him. "Is this the residence of Ian Coles?"

The door opened a bit wider revealing the woman behind it, and Kevin automatically made a mental note of her features. About five foot six inches, eleven and a half stone, long straight brown hair, deep dark eyes.

"What's this about?" she asked.

"And you would be?"

"Ruth. Ruth Coles. I'm Ian's wife." 

Kevin held up a piece of paper. "Mrs. Coles, we have permission to search the premises."

She frowned, "But Ian hasn't lived here in over six months." Seeing Kevin's reaction, she added, "We're separated."

He glanced over to Paula who shrugged her shoulders as if to say, "Up to you." 

"Well, since we're here, we might as well have a look," he decided, though he spoke to Mrs. Coles.

Her voice was welcoming, but her eyes were wary. "I suppose I should let you in, then," and she stepped aside. Kevin crossed the threshold and nodded his thanks, and Paula followed closely behind.

"Should I take the upstairs?" she asked him.

"Sounds like a plan. I'll cover down here."

As Paula went up the stairs, Coles' wife said, "I'm not sure how comfortable I am with this."

"Don't worry, Mrs Coles," he assured her, "we won't be digging around. We're just here to have a look." He walked into the small kitchen, directly off the living room, and opened the cupboards one at a time. No children's cereals or biscuits; nothing that would seem to cater to the whims and appetites of a six year-old.

"What is it you're looking for?"

Ignoring her question, he returned to the living room. "Small place," he remarked.

"It's just Ian and me. Or, it was."

"No kids?"

She didn't meet his eyes. "No."

"Is that why you separated?"

Her head snapped up. "It's never just one thing, is it?" she replied coldly. In an instant, she regretted her tone and said, "It was a large part of it, yes."

"I'm sorry," Kevin apologized. A sweep of the room revealed nothing. No toys, no books, no games, no movies that might entertain a child. A long drab sofa lay against the longest wall in the room and faced a small television. The matching armchair sat in the corner near a standard lamp. The rest of the floor space was taken up by a rectangular coffee table bereft of anything but a remote control and a copy of "OK" magazine. His eyes looked up to the walls. Reprints of two famous paintings he couldn't quite identify hung over the sofa and over the television was a single shelf which was the home to a pair of photographs. One was a large 8x10 of the Coles, at their wedding reception, Kevin surmised. The second one was smaller, and he had to step up close to see it. A black and white picture, perhaps 3x5, sat proudly in a heavy black frame. Behind the glass, the image of a young boy no older than eight grinned joyfully back at Kevin. He took it off the shelf and looked at the woman standing beside him.

"My brother," she said, answering his unspoken question.

"Ah, I was about to comment on the resemblance."

She took the frame out of his hand and carefully returned it to the shelf. When she turned around to face him again, she remained standing between him and the photo. "You still haven't told me what you're looking for."

He heard Paula's light tread on the stairs and, when he saw her, he knew immediately she'd found nothing.

Pointing in the direction of the stairs with her thumb, Paula observed, "You don't have a bath."

The older woman shook her head. "We've been meaning to put one in ever since we bought the house, but…"

Kevin pulled out a small notepad. "Where's your husband staying now?"

"In a flat on Meadowlark. Number thirty-four."

He wrote this information down then returned the pad to his pocket. In its place, he pulled out three smaller versions of the photos at the office. "Do you recognize any of these boys, Mrs. Coles?"

One at a time she took them from him. Slowly examining them, she said, "Yes. These boys played for the Knights. This one," she pointed to the picture of Kieran Fisher, "was over once or twice for tea. Nice boy. Could play football like nobody's business, or so my husband said. I don't know the names of these other boys. Sorry."

Kevin wished he had paid more attention when Tony talked about all the subconscious tics of a liar. And yet, even without that knowledge, something in his gut told him the same thing –this woman was lying. As he took the photos from her, he raised his eyes to look at her, but his gaze was drawn over her shoulder, to the young boy who smiled out from the black and white photo. Kevin's heart froze. The resemblance wasn't just between the woman and her brother. He didn't have to look down at the photos; their images had monopolized his attention since the very start of this case. His hand shook a little as he returned them to his jacket.

"Just out of curiosity, what's your brother's name?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Is that important?"

He shook his head. "No, I suppose not. Thank you for your time."

They barely made it down the steps when Paula turned to him. "What was that all about?" she asked, not unkindly.

"I'm not sure," he answered. He had his assumptions –one huge one, in fact –but until he ran it past Carol, he thought it best to keep it to himself.

--


	6. chapter 6

"Are you sure?" Carol asked him.

Kevin paused, knowing what he wanted to say, weighing it against the facts. "No," he admitted, "but I can feel it, guv."

"We'd better tell Brenda Woodson to watch her back," Don ribbed him.

Kevin smirked. "We shouldn't have to tell her, she should see me coming."

Before they got out of hand, Carol jumped in. "All right, all right. Let's remember why we're here, yeah?" Both men nodded and, satisfied with their response, she continued, "Okay. Convince me."

It had all sounded so plausible in his head on the way back to the office but now, facing the scrutiny of his colleagues, his boss, and Tony Hill, he wasn't so sure. "Well," he wavered, "she has the opportunity. Everything that might have applied to Ian Coles applies to her. Moreso, in fact," he said, warming up. "We said the person who took these boys would be close, but not in direct contact with them. Her husband being a referee gave her a perfect opportunity to befriend these boys in a round about way."

"Befriend the boys without the parents really noticing," Paula said, following his reasoning.

"Exactly. She admitted having Kieran Fisher over for tea. And I'm sure she knew the other boys, too. And I'm telling you, the resemblance between these boys and her brother is uncanny."

"What do you think the connection with her brother is?" Carol asked.

His enthusiasm faltered. "I haven't figured that part out yet."

"And I don't want to rain on your parade, Kevin," said Paula, "but there's no bath in that house."

He was undeterred. "Maybe she didn't kill the boys there."

"Or maybe it's not in a bath at all." Heads swiveled in Tony's direction. "We've made an assumption that it was a bath, but we have nothing to support it. Maybe these boys were killed outside. Or maybe they weren't drowned at all."

"You're doubting the visions of our psychic?" said Carol sweetly.

He didn't take the bait. "What I'm saying is, you're always reminding me we need evidence. There's no evidence to support any one theory regarding the fates of these boys." He turned to Kevin. "She's had a three year window of opportunity to take these boys, or boys of a similar kind. Identify the trigger."

"Separation from her husband; the disappointment of not having children. Possible estrangement with from her brother," he offered.

Tony showed his satisfaction with a smile. "Well done, Kevin."

The young man tried not to blush. "Three years of you hanging about, I should pick up something, yeah?"

"I hate to sound like a broken record here," Don interrupted, "I mean, identifying a trigger is all well and good, but the evidence?"

"If we go with her as our suspect, there's no way she did anything in that house," Paula declared.

Kevin concurred. "Definitely took place somewhere else."

"So we need to find out if she or her husband have another place. Considering he's staying in a flat, it would have to be a cottage or the like, somewhere outside of Bradfield. See what kind of records you can find, Don. Do we have anything else, Paula?"

She made a face. "Sorry. We've followed up on every potential nutter and possible lurker. There's nothing that's out of the ordinary or can't be explained. I think most parents were clutching at straws in the first place. Though I don't blame them, what with everything that's happening around them. We've got no witnesses to the kidnappings. Both Kieran and Thomas were walking home from the park when they were taken. And the kids who were playing with David at the time all say he was sitting off to the side; they didn't notice he'd gone until, well, he was gone." 

Carol grimaced. "I don't think the parents are the only ones here clutching at straws," she conceded.

"Bring Ian Coles back in," Tony suggested. "Now that we know what we might be after perhaps we can get the substantiation we need through him."

Carol gave this some thought before agreeing. "Paula, give him a call. See if you can get him in here."

"I'm on it," she said, and departed.

"What about me, guv?"

"Go get yourself a coffee and take a breather, Kev," she commanded. "You did good work."

"I hope so."

Paula poked her head back into the room. "Sorry. There's a call for you," she told Carol. "Diane Cromwell."

Carol closed her eyes and sighed.

"Let me guess," Kevin predicted, "they've called in a medium." Carol shot him a sharp look and he coughed to cover his gaffe. "I'll be at my desk." he said, and beat a hasty retreat.

"It's just his way of dealing with things, Carol," Tony gently reminded her

"Doesn't mean I have to like it though, does it?" Rubbing her forehead, she murmured, "Sorry. Look, don't go anywhere; I'll be right back, yeah?"

"Yeah."

--

Only too aware of the flashing red light signaling the call holding, Carol sat on the edge of her desk clenching and unclenching her fists several times before she picked up the receiver. She punched the button to retrieve the call, "Carol Jordan."

There was a slight pause on the other end of the line. "Miss Jordan, it's Diane Cromwell."

"I'm glad you called, Mrs. Cromwell. How are you?" Carol cringed at the question.

After another long pause, the woman answered, "As well as can be expected, I suppose."

"I'm sorry."

"I… I heard the Fishers called in a psychic."

"Yes."

"I know this is going to sound crazy, but I don't suppose…"

She waited for her to finish, and when nothing else was said, Carol softly replied, "We weren't able to get anything of any real merit, unfortunately." No matter what her own personal views were of Brenda Woodson and her ilk, there was no sense in sharing those with a woman who already had enough to deal with as it was. "We are following up on a couple of leads, Mrs. Cromwell. I don't want to get your hopes up, but I also want to assure you that we are pursuing this investigation to the fullest."

"I know. Marcus told us you questioned him." There was a shaky laugh at the end of her comment.

Carol smiled at the memory. "Yes, I think perhaps we were a bit overzealous in our questioning."

"No, no," Diane quickly said. "Be as zealous as you like. That's what we want, isn't it? We want you to do everything you can." Her voice cracked and Carol heard her stifle a sob.

"We are doing everything we can," Carol re-assured her. "And the minute we find out anything, we will let you know, I promise you that, Mrs. Cromwell."

"I know," she said at long last. "Thank you."

"Thank you for calling."

Carol replaced the receiver back on its cradle and let out a long heavy sigh into the silence of her office.

--

"Went well?" Tony asked as Carol returned to the room.

"Better than expected," she replied. "Kevin will be pleased to know they didn't hire a medium."

Their exchange of smiles was a welcome relief to the sombre mood that permeated the office.

"She's an incredibly strong woman, considering what she's going through. I don't think I could do it, I'll tell you that much."

Tony shook his head in disagreement. "You never really know what you're capable of until you're faced with it, Carol."

She wondered if he was basing his comment on his own personal experiences, many of which Carol knew were filled with their own kinds of horror. It was in these quiet moments that she wondered if she really knew him, if she ever would. His eyes never lit up at the completion of a case the way hers did. She worked on setting it aside and moving forward; he carried it with him. Maybe it was because she worked in monochrome and his world was awash with greys. She wondered what he saw in his face when he looked in the mirror, besides the lines that told a story of every nightmare he ever had. It was when he smiled that she felt joy, a relief in knowing some of those lines were created by happiness in his life. There weren't many, she admitted, but there were more now than when she had first met him, and she took some measure of joy from that as well.

"What are you thinking?" he asked.

She looked into warm blue eyes that had taken a respite from turmoil and now looked back at her with a hint of sly curiosity. "I was thinking how much I liked your smile." At the first sign of his brows lowering in puzzlement, she interjected sternly, "Smiling. Not frowning." He couldn't have stopped his smile sneaking out from the corner of his mouth if he tried.

For the second time that day, Paula interrupted them from the doorway. "Ian Coles is here."

--

If he was nervous the first time he was in for questioning, Ian Coles was downright jumpy now. As Tony and Carol sat opposite the referee, he crossed and uncrossed his arms at least twice.

"I was told on Friday that my services as a referee were no longer needed," he said by way of introduction.

Carol paused, midway to her chair, then sat. "I'm sorry to hear that, Mr. Coles."

"Word got out about the pictures," he accused. "I'm a bloody pariah."

"They didn't come from this office, I assure you," she replied. "I am sorry," she repeated sincerely. In Carol's book, no one deserved to be judged by the ignorance of others.

He waved off her apology. "A lot of good it does me, doesn't it? So, are you going to arrest me?"

Carol's notable impatience came to the fore. He had made his point, and to belabour it was only pissing her off. "Should I?"

Realizing he was pushing his luck he shook his head. "No."

"Good. So let's just chat then."

"About what?"

"How long have you been separated from your wife?"

His brow wrinkled in confusion. "What? I… about six months, why?"

"No kids?"

"No."

"Is that a conscious choice, or…?"

His expression remained one of puzzlement. "I don't understand what this has to do with anything."

"You don't have to understand, Mr. Coles," Carol told him. "Considering the severity of the situation, would it be so hard to just answer my questions?"

Looking down sadly, he replied, "No, I suppose not." He rested his head in his left hand and kept his eyes down. "It was a conscious choice. Ruth is a wonderful person; very kind, very loving. She would have made a great mother. But she's… she panics around children, I suppose is the best way to put it." He looked up and saw both Tony and Carol waiting for more. "She worries unnecessarily, worries she's going to drop them or hurt them in some way."

"It's a natural reaction," Tony explained. "Most adults when confronted with the unpredictable nature of a child feel experience a moment of panic, a loss of control."

"You can't possibly understand what it's like for Ruth; she trembles, has difficulty breathing, gets dizzy spells. I've never seen anything like it."

"And what was your reaction to the decision to not have children?" Carol asked.

"We discussed it before we got married, so it wasn't a surprise to me. At the time, we were young. I didn't want children then anyway."

Carol caught the tense. "And now?"

"Now," he sighed, "now I'm living in a flat by myself."

"It's why you became a referee," Tony noted. "To be around children."

Coles nodded.

Tony tilted his head. "And how did your wife take it, you being around children? I mean, you had Kieran Fisher over for dinner on more than one occasion. How did your wife handle that situation?"

His eyes lit up. "She was fine, absolutely fine. A bit nervous at first, but so was he. After a while, they got along famously."

"Perhaps it was the age group," Tony speculated. "At that age, children are quite durable. To some extent, they can be left to their own devices without causing much worry. They can articulate what they want or what's wrong to some degree, so that an adult who might otherwise feel helpless is made to feel they can make things better for the child. The fulfillment of a natural tendency to protect."

"Did your wife take part in any of the activities of the Knights? Did she go with you to games or volunteer in any way?"

"Not really, no," he answered. "Although, the last year or so, she was coming to more games. I think the times Kieran came over showed her she had nothing to worry about."

"But she still didn't want children."

"No."

Tony leaned forward and clasped his hands on top of the table. "It's an unusual fear your wife has. Most people, when exposed to their fear will gradually defeat it over time. Your wife's willingness to be in the presence of children should have steadily grown stronger, and her tolerance of younger children would have increased. Any idea what might have caused this fear in the first place? Most fears develop in childhood –do you know of any event that would have triggered such an anxiety?"

"It was the brother," Carol replied, as if the answer was written on the table.

Tony's eyes widened and he looked at her in amazement. "Of course!"

Coles' mouth was agape. "Yes. How in the world…?" When the pair didn't respond, he continued, "She was ten, he was six. They had gone swimming somewhere south of Bradfield, where their parents had a cottage. She barely ever spoke about it and when she did, it was like pulling teeth. It's very difficult for her, even now, over twenty-five years later."

Carol felt like she had been punched in the stomach. "He drowned."

"Yes."

She stole a quick glance at Tony. His ashen face spoke volumes.

"She couldn't help him?" Tony inquired.

"She couldn't swim," Coles said in return. "She was torn between running for help and leaving her brother to drown alone."

Carol frowned. "How far was the cottage?"

"I don't know. I've never been."

"Explains the bath," Tony murmured.

"Pardon?"

"Hmmm? Oh, sorry. You didn't have a bath in your house. Among other things, your wife's hydrophobic." Blank stares came back from Carol and Coles. "A fear of water."

"Well, she's not manic about it, if that's what you mean," he defended, "but I suppose I wouldn't say she's overly fond of it, either." A thought occurred to him, and he sat back with his arms folded. "Wait a minute. What does all this have to do with the missing boys?" His face slowly went from confusion to suspicion to shock. "You can't think… Ruth would never… oh my god."

Pulling out a piece of paper and a pen from her jacket, Carol asked, "Where's this cottage?"

Coles blinked. "I don't know; I told you, I've never been. Doesn't matter anyway. Her mother died shortly afterwards and her father passed on a little over a year ago. Ruth had the place demolished. I guess it was the only way she could try and start fresh."

"Any other place she might go to?"

"No," he answered. "Even without kids, we're not exactly well off." He looked shell-shocked. "I can't believe this."

"Mr. Coles, I can't urge you enough –this goes no further than this room." His eyes remained glassy. "For your wife's sake." This got his attention. "Think of what you've gone through all because of a small part of your past being exposed. Even in the best case scenario, if this were to come out about your wife, think about how it would affect her."

"Yeah." With more conviction, he repeated, "Yeah." He ran a trembling hand through his hair. "I suppose you'll… you'll bring her in to speak with her." Carol nodded. "I'd like to be here when you do. For her."

"That would be good, Mr. Coles. There's an area downstairs by the front desk where you can wait, if you like. I can send someone for you as soon as your wife arrives."

"Okay," he agreed and stood up. Using the edge of the table for support, he barely staggered out of the room.

The door scarcely clicked shut before Carol swiveled to look at Tony. "Well?"

"Well, what do you think?"

"I think it supports Kevin's theory, and he'll be very happy when I send him over to pick her up, the clever bastard."

Tony smiled but said, "Get the location of the cottage. She won't be at home."

"But Coles said it was demolished." He waited patiently for her to sigh, "All right, all right. I'm on it." They both stood up at the same time and bumped into each other. Holding his arm for support, she said, "If she's not at home, are you up for a ride?"

"Of course."

"Good."

She could feel the fire begin to build inside her, as it always did when she grew confident a case was nearing its end. She would only show this enthusiasm to him, because she knew that if it went badly, he would remain at her side. She searched his eyes for a similar spark, but found none. His blue eyes gazed back, a hint of torment, a hint of pain, but also a fair amount of empathy and strength. She framed his face with her hands.

"We all need our anchors, Tony."

He was three steps behind her as he tried to decipher her meaning.

--


	7. chapter 7

While he may not have been able to boast the psychic talents of Brenda Woodson, Tony was right –Ruth Coles wasn't home. Kevin's voice, all enthusiasm deflated, had called to let Carol know. She in turn gave him directions to the childhood cottage of their number one suspect, or at least, its location, thirty-five minutes outside of Bradfield.

"Bring Don with you," she told him. "I'm leaving right now."

Though she refrained from turning employing the siren, she was driving fast enough to cause Tony to grip the door tightly as she crossed several junctions at high speed. It was only as they reached the outskirts of the city and broke clear of the traffic that he relaxed. And it was only then that Carol spoke. Once again alone with the one person to whom she could confess her insecurities, she said, "If it's not her, I…"

He turned away from the warm breeze that whistled through the open window and looked at her. "If it's not her, we'll deal with that when the time comes."

She gripped the wheel and nodded. "You're right." Sneaking a glimpse across at him, she laughed at his expression –a blank stare that said he was not impressed by the lack of conviction in her answer. "You're right, of course," she praised, a bit too earnestly.

"Very funny," he rebuked. "Anyway, what have we got? We've got a woman with a severe psychological issue with children, based on a childhood event involving her brother. A brother who was the same age as these boys; a brother who, for all intents and purposes, died in her care."

"But you can't blame a ten year-old for something like that."

"I don't," he replied, "but she obviously does. Whether or not her parents perpetuated the blame or absolved her of it doesn't matter either. She felt she was the one to blame."

"And she's taken the children, why? And why now?"

Tony squinted as he looked out the window. "I thought perhaps it was how comfortable she felt around Kieran Fisher that sparked her, but it doesn't seem like it would be a dramatic enough stimuli to trigger these events. Those memories were repressed so severely that it would take something more direct to open that door again. I think it was the death of her father."

Carol hummed in agreement. "So you're saying that it gave her an opportunity to finally put it behind her, but by the same token, it brought everything back to the forefront again."

"Exactly. And I bet she went to the cottage before she had it demolished."

"Makes sense," she nodded. "Her father died a year ago. The boys started going missing almost five months ago. But you haven't told me why. And why she'd be out here." As the words came out of her mouth, the answer came to her. "Oh, God. You think she really has drowned them."

"I… I don't know, Carol. Maybe she has a place out here to keep them, to protect them. That would be an understandable motivation for her –she wants to protect the boy she wasn't able to protect when she was ten." Though his hypothesis was sound, what he thought was a far more likely, and terrible, scenario was playing out in his mind. He caught Carol's glance and couldn't lie. "I don't know. I think she might be trying to re-create that event; that moment when her brother needed her and she failed him."

"But you said she's hydrophobic."

"Yes."

She gripped the steering wheel again. "So isn't this re-creation or whatever it is she's doing, pointless? Won't the outcome be the same as it was twenty-five years ago?"

"Yes."

He heard her curse under her breath. "That's why we have three missing boys instead of one. So they are dead."

He had no reply, instead he pushed his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket and looked off into the distance.

--

The soft crunch of gravel as the car rolled to a stop was the only sound to mar the beauty of their surroundings. They got out, quietly closing the doors behind them, and Carol walked to the front of the car. 

She turned a complete circle. "This is incredible." They weren't the only ones to blemish the landscape; about fifteen yards to the left stood a silver hatchback. "Ruth Coles," Carol said. 

They had driven up a slight incline to get there, and it seemed as if they were surrounded by hills.

"Did you see anything resembling a body of water on the way here?" she asked rhetorically, knowing they had seen no such thing.

Tony answered automatically anyway. "No. But I do see Kevin." He pointed across the way, where a blue saloon car was following the same route they taken just a short while ago. However, the distance was deceptive; Tony knew it would take Kevin at least another ten minutes to reach them. Carol walked over to Ruth's car as he spoke, bending to peer inside and find nothing out of the ordinary. 

Turning her back to the car, she walked back towards Tony and pointed to a large flat plot, an obvious reminder of the recently razed cottage.

"Well, we're at the right place," he remarked.

"But where's she?" Carol completed another circle, only this time her attention was not taken by the beauty of the place, but on the possibility of evidence the place might yield. Midway through her third careful sweep of observation she abruptly stopped: blindly reaching out to her side, her hand fluttered until it grasped Tony's.

He narrowed his eyes as he tried to follow her line of sight and although it was partially obscured by scrub that had sprung up to reclaim the area it didn't take long for Tony to see what had (taken hold of) captured Carol's interest. There it was, on the far side of the razed plot.

"A narrow path," was all she said at last.

They both stood, motionless and silent, until finally Tony, his hand still in hers, pulled her towards the path. Carol could sense the urgency of his curiosity mounting as his brisk stride broke into jog and finally she was forced to let go of his had as he began running up the hill, away from the remains of the cottage, not once looking back as she did. She was caught between waiting for Kevin to arrive and following Tony's retreating form as he disappeared over the brow of the hill. The decision was an easy one. 

"Tony!" she called out as she gave chase.

Whether it was the distance of the roar of the blood rushing to his head, he wasn't sure, but he only faintly heard her calling his name. When he reached to top he bent over at the waist to catch his breath, resting his hands on his knees he took a moment to look around. No wonder neither he nor Carol had seen the lake along the way; it was sheltered at the bottom of the basin by the sloping landscape around it, very much like a small bowl. The water was a startlingly deep blue, offset by hues of green on all sides; the surface was still and smooth, like glass. On any other occasion, he might have sat down and admired the view, but that would have to wait. Right now, his eyes were scanning the bottom of the hill, trying, hoping, to find Ruth Coles. He started jogging down the hill just as Carol reached the top.

"Hold on!" she commanded.

The downward incline lent her speed and she caught up with him easily.

"Don't run off like that again, yeah?" she managed to get out.

He nodded absently, but was looking down the rocky shoreline. "Carol," he said.

She saw it, too. About fifty yards away, a figure standing on a small outcrop of rock that stretched out across the water.

"She doesn't look so afraid of water now."

Tony ignored the remark and instead replied, "We need to get over there." Before he had finished speaking, he was precariously picking his way across the loose earth and stones towards Ruth.

"Careful," Carol said as she followed him.

They were twenty yards away when Ruth spotted them. Looking down, she stammered out her shock. "Who… who are you?"

Holding out his hands in a non-threatening manner, Tony answered, "My name's Tony Hill. This is Carol Jordan. We're here to help you."

"You can't help me."

Although he had slowed down his approach, he continued to inch his way closer.

"Stop right there!" she ordered.

He spoke very calmly. "We're just going to come up. That's all. I promise." With some difficulty, he kept his hands out and carefully climbed the short but steep incline. Once at the top, he realized how deceptive the size of the rocky plateau was –from the shore, it stretched out into the water about twenty feet, but it couldn't have been more than five feet across. On the plus side, with him and Carol at the entry and Ruth at the point, she wouldn't be able to run past them. Of course, he wasn't sure anyone would be running with any kind of confidence on such a narrow course in the first place.

As if she read his mind, Ruth said, "It seemed so much larger when we were children."

He nodded and tried to gauge the depth of the water. From where they stood, he and Carol were still over land, but the water crept up the base of the escarpment about ten feet in front of Tony's line of sight. He tried to look past Ruth to get a better sense of the depth.

"Straight down," she told him. "And I should know."

"How did you get the children here, Ruth?" he asked.

"They knew me," she replied. "Parents leave their children alone when they should be protecting them!" The anger washed away from her face when she said, "I invited them over. Crushed some sleeping pills into their lemonade."

"They must have been frightened when they woke up."

Her anger quickly returned. "What about me? I was frightened!"

"What happened to your brother?" She pressed the heel of her palm against her forehead at the memory. "It's okay, Ruth," he soothed, "it's okay to tell us."

Clenching her eyes shut, the words tumbled out of her mouth. "We were throwing stones." She reached into her pocket. "Just like these ones. Right here. He was laughing. We were sharing crisps. Then I turned around to get more stones. I didn't take my eyes off him for more than a minute!" She began to softly hit her forehead with her fist. "It was quiet; then I heard him scream my name. I came back to the ledge and saw him in the water. I tried to reach for him, but I couldn't." Tony nodded his understanding. By his guess, the distance between the edge and the water was at least seven feet; out of the reach of an adult, let alone a ten year-old child.

"Did you try to save them, Ruth?"

The tears came as she sobbed. "I tried. I couldn't save them. I couldn't save him."

Carol tried to keep her anger in check. "They're dead," she said flatly.

The sobbing continued, uncontrollable now. "I tried! They… they were in the water, their eyes begging me for help. And I couldn't reach."

"You couldn't have gotten a stick?" Carol asked harshly, her compassion wearing thin. "Maybe in the twenty-five years that have passed you would have learned how to swim."

"Carol!"

"No, she's right," Ruth agreed.

"We're not here to judge you," Tony flashed an angry look at Carol. "We're here to help you."

She simply shook her head sadly. "Can you swim, Mr. Hill?"

"What?"

She took two steps back and disappeared from sight.

It only took him a second to register what had happened, but it seemed like hours. Shedding his jacket and kicking off his shoes, he ran towards the edge and leapt in. Carol blinked, stunned at the sudden turn of events.

"Jesus Christ!" she exclaimed. Throwing off her own jacket and shoes she dived in the water after him.

Whether by design or accident, Ruth's flailing arms made it almost impossible for Tony to grab her. Twice she hit him in the face, causing him to see stars. What he couldn't understand was why she was sinking so quickly. She hadn't been wearing anything of –'The stones,' he thought. 'She had a pocketful of stones.' Panicking, he dove under, his eyes open in the dark water, his lungs burning as he made one last attempt to reach for her. Desperately, he grabbed her sleeve, but gravity was working against him. Yet he would not let go. It was the pull of an arm reaching under his and across his chest, yanking him backward that finally severed the connection. 

He broke the surface, gasping for air. Hearing someone behind him doing the same, he realized Carol had jumped in after him.

"Carol," he gasped. "Carol!"

Rather than reply, she pulled him tightly to her, and he rested his head back against her shoulder. As they slowly treaded backwards towards shore.

"What the hell?" Kevin yelled halfway down the hill.

"Christ!" Don swore. Hurtling past Kevin, he waded out into the lake until he reached Carol and Tony grasping her collar and pulling them in. "Now I know why you had Kevin bring me," he quipped, his uncertainty of the situation bleeding into his tone.

Once on dry land, he helped them stagger away from the rocks, where Carol dropped to her knees to catch her breath, and Tony unceremoniously flopped down, his body prone on the ground.

"Kevin," she said, then paused for a breath. "Call the divers –Ruth Coles just committed suicide." She ran her fingers through her wet hair and felt the rivulets run down her neck. "We think they'll find the children, too."

Kevin leaned his head back. "Shit," he bit out.

"Is he going to be okay?" Don asked, looking down at Tony with concern.

"Yeah," she answered, taking another breath before she added darkly, "And once he's recovered, I'm going to kill him."

--

He sat on a small rock, a blanket draped across his shoulders, as the methodical activity of divers and pathologists went on around him. Carol had not spoken a word to him since he had jumped into the icy lake. He couldn't really blame her, he thought as he watched her standing on the very ledge onto which he had followed Ruth Coles. She stood alone hugging herself, her face in profile, her eyes never leaving the water. They had found Ruth almost immediately, but he knew that wasn't what Carol was waiting for. Eighty-eight minutes after the divers arrived the body of David Cromwell was discovered. She turned away then; she didn't need to wait for more.

As she scrambled down the slope towards him he wondered idly why his gaze was drawn to her bare feet. Such an odd thing to notice among all this death and sadness. Or maybe he just didn't want to see her face, hard and angry. Angry that the children really had suffered the fate that had only been horrible theory up to that point. Angry that Ruth Coles had committed suicide, thus denying the families some measure of justice. And, he suspected, she was quite angry with him.

He stared at her feet until he realized they had stopped right in front of him. Craning his neck up to look at her, he waited for the resentment to rain down on him. Much to his surprise, she held out her hands and helped him to his feet. The blanket slipped off his shoulders and fell to the ground but he made no movement to retrieve it. Instead, he held her gaze and wondered what she was thinking.

"I don't know whether I should slap you or hug you," she said at long last, her voice raw and sharp.

He shut his eyes and braced for the impact of her hand on his cheek and was startled when he felt her arms go around him. He froze at the unexpected contact then relaxed in her embrace. As his hands went crept around her back, she gripped him tighter, one arm around his shoulders, and one hand in his still-damp hair.

Her lips were soft against his ear and she simply whispered, "Don't ever do that to me again." Then she pulled back and discreetly wiped her eyes, wary of her surroundings and the place for emotions in them. His fingertips hung on to her forearms in silent support. The contact broken as she bent down for his blanket and draped it over his shoulders tucking the ends in his hands. She stepped away and coughed.

"Listen. Um, you're going to have to come back to the station with me and fill out a report." When she saw his nod, she asked, "Do you want to do that now? I'm not sure there's much left for us to do here." Again he nodded, and waited as she walked over to Kevin. He couldn't hear what she said but he saw Kevin nod in agreement.

Don walked up to him with a clear plastic bag nicked from one of the divers. Inside were Tony's jacket and shoes, as well as Carol's.

He handed Tony the bag. "I thought you might like these back."

"Thank you, Don."

The big man shuffled from one foot to the other several times before saying, "That was a pretty brave thing you did there, Dr. Hill." Tony's only response was a wan smile. "But if you don't mind me saying," he went on, "if you try anything that stupid again, if you put your own life at risk like that again, she'll kill you."

'She' didn't have to be identified by name; Tony knew exactly who it was. This time his smile was genuine. "I will definitely take your advice into consideration, Don."

"You will if you know what's good for you!"

The two men shared a quiet laugh, a sharp aberration amid the somber cloud that enveloped them all.

"Thank you, Don," Tony said again, this time, heartfelt and sincere.

"What was that all about?" Carol asked as she watched Don walk away.

Tony's eyes swept over the scene. A gentle breeze blew through the trees and brushed across the long blades of grass that were everywhere, a thousand shades of green. The sun burned brightly, touching everything with warmth and light. He saw a diver break the surface of the cool water, and the spell was broken. 'We shouldn't be here,' he thought bitterly. 'We shouldn't be here looking for the bodies of children.' Shifting his focal point to something closer, Carol came into focus. She had combed her blonde hair back with her fingers, still damp it was a darker shade than he recognized. The lines around her soft mouth told stories of laughter as did the fine creases around her eyes. He wondered if he had been a part of any of them. Her lips twitched, her subconscious 'tell' that she was waiting for an answer. His blue gaze met her brown eyes which looked back at him patiently. For the first time he had allowed himself the luxury of really looking at her, knowing that she was looking back.

"He was just reminding me of my own mortality," he smiled before the tears fell.

--

While there were always aspects of the job she hated, Carol was sure nothing compared to that lonely moment on the doorstep of a stranger's house, before she had to tell them their loved one wasn't coming home. It was a task she had to do three times that day, none of them easier than the last. She had learned to harden her heart over the years –you had to or you'd never make it through the day, she knew- but watching mothers and fathers crumble before her eyes was almost more than she could handle. Walking past the evidence room she saw Kevin taking down the photos and placing them in folders. A soft brush over the board erased the last seven days and the white board now waited patiently for the next case.

"Thanks, Kev," Carol said gratefully.

His head jerked up from the folders. "Oh," he said, surprised by her appearance. "Yeah, no problem. I figured you had enough to do, what with… anyway, you didn't need to do this, too."

She smiled. "Thanks. You'll make a great DCI one day."

"Nah, I told you. Right to the top." He winked at his bravado.

"Ah, right," she nodded. "Well, always remember the little people," she advised.

They laughed, though Carol's seemed a bit hollow.

"You should go home," Kevin said. "I was just going to file these then head out myself, if that's all right."

"Yeah," she answered, "on both counts. I'll see you tomorrow, Kev."

"Get some sleep!" he ordered as she walked away.

--

An insistent knock on the door slowly roused her from an uncomfortable slumber. She sat up and grimaced at the sharp pain that stabbed through her neck and she rubbed her eyes put as everything came into focus. She had fallen asleep on the couch. Checking her watch, she thought perhaps she hadn't rubbed her eyes enough. Twenty past ten, the hands dutifully informed her. Sunlight flooded in through the window; it was twenty past ten in the morning. She had slept all night on the couch.

"No wonder my neck hurts," she muttered. The knock on the door repeated. "Coming!" she yelled, not entirely welcoming.

Unlocking the door she swung it open, her "I'm not buying anything" face on. It was quickly replaced by one of surprise.

"Tony," she said needlessly.

He looked around to check if there was anyone else with him. "Yes," he smiled.

"Cheek," she laughed. "What are you doing here? And what, is that?" She gestured to a fairly large object behind him that was covered by a dustsheet.

"I've come bearing gifts. Or, a gift. But you're going to have to help me carry it in. The delivery man gave up on me when you didn't answer the door."

Her brow furrowed. "What on earth are you talking about? How long have you been out here?"

"About half an hour. I'm sure he thought I'd lost my mind."

"We've been trying to prove that for years," she quipped. "Now, spill. What is it?"

He picked up the corner of the sheet and tugged until it revealed the object underneath.

She gasped in surprise then burst into laughter. "Your chair!"

Tony sighed dramatically. "No. Your chair." Pleased with her reaction, he said, "I thought you might need it. And by the looks of you, I was right."

"Hey!"

"Besides," he smiled, "I want to make sure you're not using me just for my chair."

"My chair," she corrected.

Despite the events of the last twenty-four hours, they laughed. It was all they could do.

-end.


End file.
